Isolated cases or widespread practice? The occurence of sharing managers in Swedish working life

Abstract

In investigating whether shared leadership can be tracked on a work-life level, this study aims to contribute knowledge about how common shared leadership is among managers in Sweden. A search was made for equal assumption of responsibilities and, specifically, for joint leadership, i.e. a formal mandate for decision-making affecting the full range of responsibilities attaching to the managerial post. The results show that shared leadership is tracked on a work-life level, and that the most far-reaching form joint leadership was found among 5 % of the managers. Thus, the phenomenon cannot be ignored as anecdotal. This adds relevance to influencing perceptions of leadership towards more pluralism, in which questions of leadership naturally incorporate more interactive variations than does the hitherto accepted theory of singular leadership.