Leadership

Five core competency areas for participatory modeling

By Sondoss Elsawah, Elena Bakhanova, Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Alexey Voinov

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1. Sondoss Elsawah (biography)
2. Elena Bakhanova (biography)
3. Raimo P. Hämäläinen (biography)
4. Alexey Voinov (biography)

What knowledge and skills do individuals and teams need to be effective at participatory modeling?

We suggest that five core competency areas are essential for participatory modeling:

  1. systems thinking
  2. modeling
  3. group facilitation
  4. project management and leadership
  5. operating in the virtual space.

These are illustrated in the figure below.

These competency areas have naturally overlapping elements and should therefore be seen as a holistic and interdependent set. Further, while certain competencies such as modeling skills can be addressed by individual members of a participatory modeling team, the entire process is a team effort and it is necessary to also consider the competencies as a group skill.

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Integration in inter- and transdisciplinary research: how can the leadership challenges be addressed?

By Lisa Deutsch and Sabine Hoffmann

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1. Lisa Deutsch (biography)
2. Sabine Hoffmann (biography)

How can the integration required in large inter- and transdisciplinary programs be effectively led? What challenges do leaders of integration in such programs face and how can they address them? What are the particular challenges in using a theory of change as an integrative tool?

We describe five key challenges that we encountered when leading the integration for a large 10-year inter- and transdisciplinary research program, which explored novel non-grid water and sanitation systems that can function as comparable alternatives to conventional large network-based systems. We experienced these challenges when applying the tool Theory of Change to facilitate communication, collaboration and integration among the team members (for more on theory of change see the i2Insights contribution by Heléne Clark). We also share the strategies we employed to address these challenges. The lessons we developed are likely to be applicable to other inter- and transdisciplinary research programs.

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Enhancing mutual learning in developing a cross-disciplinary team

By Eric Schearer and Gemma Jiang

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1. Eric Schearer (biography)
2. Gemma Jiang (biography)

How can newly forming cross-disciplinary teams develop effective strategies for working together?

We provide lessons from our experience preparing a cross-disciplinary research proposal for which we leant heavily on the mutual learning mindsets and norms which are the central elements for the Team Effectiveness Model for Science (Schwarz and Bennett, 2021). The principal investigator (Schearer) enlisted the help of a leadership consultant (Jiang).

Mutual learning mindsets and norms

As shown in the figure below, mutual learning comprises a mindset, composed of core values and assumptions, plus specific behaviors derived from the mindset that, together, are essential for effective working relationships.

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Leadership and the hidden politics of co-produced research

By Catherine Durose, Beth Perry, Liz Richardson and Rikki Dean

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1. Catherine Durose (biography)
2. Beth Perry (biography)
3. Liz Richardson (biography)
4. Rikki Dean (biography)

What are the hidden politics of seeking to co-produce research with stakeholders? What kinds of leadership are common in co-produced research? What trade-offs does each kind of leadership make in addressing issues such as being directive, inclusive, innovative, accountable, open to what emerges and sharing power?

The hidden politics of co-production in research

The hidden politics of co-production in research involves tensions and debates about:

1. The purposes of scientific work.
Co-production brings together people, not only with different expertise, but also with different purposes for being involved, which can range from achieving more effective policy and practice outcomes to delivering social justice and empowering those experiencing disadvantage.

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Six ways to see systems leadership

By Benjamin Taylor

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Benjamin Taylor (biography)

What do we mean by systems leadership? And how does it relate to systems change?

Ideas about both systems thinking and systems change have become prominent over the last few years, but the terms are often poorly defined and used with a range of meanings.

I suggest that there are broadly six types or flavours of systems leadership, all of which have key implications for systems change. And, of course, they can overlap.

1. Systems leadership as a form of better leadership

This is inclusive, mobilising, and systems aware leadership.

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Six ways facilitation skills can improve cross-disciplinary team leadership

By Manal Affara

An Arabic version of this post is available.

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Manal Affara (biography)

What facilitation skills are useful for leading teams in cross-disciplinary projects?

Facilitation and leadership are usually considered to involve different skills, but in a recent article Carrie Addington (2020) examined how facilitation skills can improve leadership. I take this one step further to examine how facilitation skills can improve leadership of cross-disciplinary projects.

Collaboration is central to cross-disciplinary research, requiring facilitation to engage partners, unlock their potential, organize the project, and encourage continuous learning, as well as applying insights from that learning.

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How systems thinking enhances systems leadership

By Catherine Hobbs and Gerald Midgley

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1. Catherine Hobbs (biography)
2. Gerald Midgley (biography)

Systems leadership involves organisations, including governments, collaborating to address complex issues and achieve necessary systemic transformations. So, if this is the case, how can systems leadership be helped by systems thinking?

Systems leadership is concerned with facilitating innovation by bringing together a network of organisations. These then collaborate between themselves and with other stakeholders to deliver some kind of service, influence a policy outcome or develop a product that couldn’t have been achieved by any one of the organisations working alone.

Recognising that a network of organisations can achieve something that emerges from their interactions involves a certain amount of implicit systems thinking.

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Do we need diversity science?

By Katrin Prager

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Katrin Prager (biography)

Where do the benefits of diverse teams come from and how can those benefits be unlocked? What are the pitfalls to watch out for in constructing a team that is greater than the sum of its parts?

To boost innovation and creativity in teams I suggest we need to develop diversity science, which has 5 elements:

  1. identifying the right kind of diversity
  2. avoiding homophily
  3. avoiding dominance hierarchies
  4. fostering appropriate leadership
  5. building and protecting trust.

Let’s unpack each of these elements.

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Leadership in participatory modelling

By Raimo P. Hämäläinen, Iwona Miliszewska and Alexey Voinov

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1. Raimo P. Hämäläinen (biography)
2. Iwona Miliszewska (biography)
3. Alexey Voinov (biography)

What can leadership discourse in the business literature tell us for leadership in participatory modelling?

Here we explore:

  • the difference between leadership and management in participatory modelling
  • different leadership styles and participatory modelling
  • three key leadership issues in participatory modelling: responsibility for best practices and ethics, competences, and who in the participatory modelling team should lead.

How does leadership differ from management in participatory modelling?

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Five organizational features for successful interdisciplinary research

By Jessica Blythe and Chris Cvitanovic

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1. Jessica Blythe (biography)
2. Chris Cvitanovic (biography)

How can significant challenges associated with doing interdisciplinary research be overcome? What are the best ways to build institutional capacity and structures that support interdisciplinary research?

We have identified five key organizational features that enable successful interdisciplinary research. These are based on an evaluation of the Centre for Marine Socioecology in Tasmania, Australia, which brings together disciplinary expertise in physics, law, economics, biology, sociology and governance. We obtained perspectives across all disciplines and career stages from PhD students to the leadership team.

The five organizational features, also shown in the figure below, are:

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What is 3-dimensional team leadership?

By Bradley L. Kirkman

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Bradley L. Kirkman (biography)

It is useful to think about teams as having three dimensions:

  1. the team as a whole
  2. the individuals in the team
  3. the subteams within the overall team, or the smaller subsets of team members who cluster together to work on specific tasks. With teams taking on more and more complex tasks, it is not uncommon for members with similar skills to tackle various assignments over a period of time and then integrate their outputs into the larger, overall team.

How does a leader know when to focus on which dimension?

The secret lies in knowing how a particular team best carries out its tasks, specifically a concept known as interdependence. Team interdependence refers to the extent to which a team requires members to communicate, collaborate, integrate, and coordinate their efforts to get their jobs done.

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Effectively leading interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research organisations

By Global Leaders of Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research Organisations

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Global Leaders of Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research Organisations details (biographies)

What qualities and skills do leaders of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research organisations need?

Leaders of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research organisations need the qualities that make any leader successful—creativity, humility, open-mindedness, long-term vision, and being a team player. In addition, we identified eight leadership attributes that are specific to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary interactions and that help leaders to be transformative with real world impacts. Leaders need to cultivate:

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