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Collaborating & Influencing

Collaborative leadership is essential to meet the challenge of greater personalisation of services and integrated working. As pressure grows on resources, working with and influencing others in strategic roles across organisations and sectors is an increasingly important way to achieve optimum outcomes.

As a manager your role may involve:

  • building trusting relationships and using evidence to influence the thinking, behaviour and practice of colleagues in other organisations
  • managing a range of complex and conflicting perspectives to move towards a shared solution
  • demonstrating how collaborative work across boundaries is leading to improved outcomes
  • influencing people over whom you have no authority, who may also have leadership roles
  • supporting collaborative approaches with people who use your service, and with workers at all levels in the workforce.

Collaborating & Influencing Resources

Examples from Practice

What Others Say

Supporting improvement leaders in Scotland’s social services

"Good intent is not sufficient to bring about change and research participants identified leaders’ ability to influence other people: ‘persuade and influence decisions in places where you have no objective authority."

Enabling Leadership Research, SSSC, 2016

Manager: Leadership Capability Indicators
Corporate leader: Leadership Capability Indicators
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