Lateral leadership is nothing new. It happens day in, day out in the workplace, without being called by this name: specifically, when employees without the power to issue instructions get others to perform particular tasks. Their colleagues then voluntarily do their bit without following an official order – and are often more than happy to do so. However, lateral leadership is growing in importance as hierarchical structures are fading into the background. There are various reasons for this. For instance, modern-day employees are keen to have more of a say and receive greater freedom. In addition, they often also work remotely and decentrally, which makes it harder to monitor them. Tanja Ineichen, Head of Leadership & Transformation at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute GDI and co-author of a book on lateral leadership, has also noticed a trend towards enhanced interdisciplinarity as a consequence of changes in society: ‘We’re faced with new situations that can leave us overstretched, but they also have the potential to generate new developments.’ She believes thinking and acting in an interdisciplinary way can help in this respect. ‘Selecting the right people to work together within an agreed framework is crucial for successful transformation and innovation.’
Commitment means ‘coming on board’
For her book, Tanja Ineichen and co-author Gunther Fürstberger asked more than 100 HR managers what they thought the key skill was for a lateral leader. ‘The ability to win commitment’ was the most frequent answer, by a wide margin. Commitment means nothing other than ‘coming on board’, says Ineichen: the readiness to jointly set off on a journey to put a lateral project into practice. Commitment is so important because someone in a lateral leadership role has no right to issue instructions. This means they cannot impose sanctions if someone doesn’t do as they’ve been asked: they rely on people doing their work on a voluntary basis. To achieve this, Ineichen believes two main criteria need to be met. Namely, employees need to have trust in the lateral leader and the belief that it makes sense to undertake the task at hand. ‘To win commitment, the lateral leader must be willing to create benefits for all parties – not just themselves.’ In addition, the goals need to be clear to everyone and be viewed by everyone as being correct and important. Of course, the lateral leader themselves also needs to be committed: it is only possible to lead laterally if you yourself back a project. As a result, lateral leaders don’t legitimise themselves via a position of power, but via their presence, expertise, negotiating skills or useful network.
Lateral leadership works when its goals serve the customer, says Ineichen: ‘Participation needs to be an appealing choice for everyone involved.’ If that’s not the case, lateral leadership can hit a wall: ‘If nobody’s willing to join in and be led, lateral leadership can’t exist either.’ However, when management among equals works well, employees are more motivated, more productive and more loyal. In short, they’re more satisfied.