5 Reasons Why Your Organization Should Be Thinking About Co-Leadership

Mike Murawski
The Startup
Published in
7 min readSep 14, 2020

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“brainstorming over paper” by Scott Graham on Unsplash.com

If the current pandemic crisis is indeed a unique and unprecedented opportunity for organizations to re-imagine themselves and how they work, then I cannot think of a better time to seriously consider adopting a collaborative and shared approach to leadership. Not only do collaborative forms of leadership align more strongly with organizational cultures working to advance equity and anti-racism, but it is also increasingly difficult for any single individual to possess all of the skills and abilities needed to lead a complex organization into a future of post-pandemic uncertainties.

In his post entitled “Museum Leadership for the Rest of Us,” Robert Weisberg cites a roundtable conversation among business experts and senior partners at McKinsey that calls into question the hero mentality of directors and CEOs in times of crisis. When asked “Does this mean we are seeing the end of the hero CEO?,” Bill Schaninger responded:

“[W]e’ve seen COVID-19 accelerating the shift away from classic authoritarian

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Mike Murawski
The Startup

consultant, educator, & change leader. Author of “Museums as Agents of Change” (2021); writes “Agents of Change” Substack; Co-Producer #MuseumsAreNotNeutral