What is Horizontal Leadership?

The concept of horizontal leadership is rapidly taking the place of vertical leadership models in many organizations today. But why?

Think about a conference you’ve been to or a workshop you’ve participated in: you’re given a problem to solve or a discussion to have. At first, it’s a little awkward. No one in your group knows where the common ground is. But, gradually, as you collaborate on the idea or problem, you see the value in the other voices in your group. You feel good when someone whom you’ve just met validates your own ideas. Just like that, you’re part of a diverse team working toward a positive (and shared) outcome.

Now translate that feeling to your business. Think about teamwork where every employee participates, and divisions work together across their silos to communicate in ways they hadn’t before.

That’s the value of the horizontal leadership method.

Why Organizations Are Moving Toward Horizontal Leadership

Simply put: vertical leadership models offer less opportunity for innovation. When initiatives are dictated solely from the top down, employees work on them without a high level of investment. Often, their mission is to do, not necessarily to think or feel.

On the surface, it seems like vertical leadership makes employees more productive because they are given tasks, and they complete them. But that model also removes agency, thought, and talent from the people who are just crossing work items off of their lists.

 In a popular LinkedIn article, Félix de Andrés describes the vertical model this way: “employees,” he writes, “are considered ‘Human Resources’ because they are part of the production chain, as a raw material or an auxiliary service.  

That’s hardly a model that works in a modern, globalized, and information-rich economy.

A Recipe for Horizontal Leadership

The horizontal leadership model is an ideal alternative to the mechanistic and regimented work structure of what came before it.

The workplace environment that horizontal leadership produces has been described in many different ways, including “democratized” and “flattened.” What these blanket terms describe is an organizational structure where decisions aren’t just made at the top, and where employees who work in divisional silos have the opportunity to collaborate more.

According to Vishal Shah of TatvaSoft, “Horizontal Leadership can help teams be more dynamic and communicate more productively.”

The goal of horizontal leadership, then, is to give all employees an active voice in projects, company initiatives, and in the ways they work on a daily basis. 

The good news is that changing the leadership paradigm from vertical to horizontal doesn’t ultimately require a great deal of time or resources. Instead, it takes two essential ingredients: empathy and information sharing.

The Role of Empathy in Horizontal Leadership

Happy employees produce great ideas. That’s because their happiness is often related to the investment they feel in the work they do. They find a greater sense of purpose in collaboration with others, and a deeper joy in working toward a shared vision. It’s not a vision that has been given to them; they have not been told what their beliefs should be. When employees feel personally attached to work in this way, they come up with new, innovative solutions. 

Horizontal leadership assumes, of course, that there is value in a collective voice. On the most basic level, the value in sourcing ideas from every employee is obvious. Why hire someone whose ideas you either don’t value, or aren’t interested in hearing?

Realizing the power in shared ideas means that you trust your employees to act and think in the best interest of your business. And if they are happy, that’s exactly what they’ll do.

Information Sharing Enables Horizontal Leadership

An article in Trusted Advisor notes that horizontal leadership can be defined as “persuading others over whom you have absolutely no direct control to join you in a common cause.” 

Indeed, great businesses are built on common causes. But most organizational structures are not set up to cross silos. It’s rare that a single project will touch every division (or even most divisions) of a company. And when we talk about restructuring, horizontal leadership looks a lot less appealing.

So consider the way your organization shares information. The trend in storing data across multiple software applications, for example, has only reinforced siloed practices and knowledge. 

When financial data is separated from customer data, you’re almost guaranteed that your accounting and sales departments will never collaborate.

And when do they need to collaborate? As it turns out, all the time. Consistency between sales estimates and company budgets are essential to recognizing profitability. And profitability, after all, is a great example of a shared goal between the two departments.

“Being profitable” isn’t the kind of common cause most employees are as enthusiastic about sharing as leadership is. However, it underscores the importance of data sharing. As a business leader, you should be asking yourself: when I open up my company to information sharing, how else can my divisional teams collaborate?

Combining Empathy and Data Sharing

Empathy and information, the two key ingredients for effective horizontal leadership, don’t happen in isolation. Think about the ways you disseminate information throughout your company. Consider news, updates, promotions, outings, community service, and more. Sometimes, simply being able to involve employees in shared conversations across your organization can deepen investment and relationships.

An article in the Harvard Business Review advocates “set[ting] up cross-silo discussions that help employees see the world through the eyes of customers or colleagues in other parts of the company.” These discussions can even happen online, through either a message board, chat, or discussion system. There are plenty of tools to make it possible.

Conclusion

Horizontal leadership isn’t a passing fad in the business world. It’s a way to strengthen employee engagement, create more collaboration, and pass information seamlessly through silos. In our connected world, it no longer makes sense to follow vertical-only structures.

If you’re thinking about trying a horizontal model, consider what needs to be in place, internally, to make those improvements. Yes, there’s often a shift of values that goes along with it. But software can play a vital role, too. 

Because horizontal leadership isn’t just a concept, but a method to practice, it’s worth exploring how you can make it an integral part of your company’s operations.