Games Leaders Play: Collaborative Leadership Development through Simulations in Knowledge-Based Organizations
New concepts of leadership and new methods of imparting these concepts to individuals are needed in the knowledge society of today. This study presented a practitioners model of collaborative leadership and a new experiential simulation methodology called LeadSimrn as a way in which organization members could learn this new model of leadership and develop confidence in its ability to engage complex issues. Using the LeadSimm simulation method, two scenarios were developed and two simulations were played. The San Jose Police Department played one simulation and the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank played the other. The researcher conducted eighteen interviews from the 54 participants in the two simulations. These interviews dealt with participant learning, shifts in the participant's mental model of leadership, the willingness to put collaborative leadership to work, and observed qualitative or quantitative changes in the organization as a result of using the collaborative leadership model. LeadSimm demonstrated its ability to immerse participants into a leadership dynamic and to engage 50% of those participants in mental model shifts. As a result of playing in the simulation, four participants used collaborative leadership which resulted in higher work group morale, greater community participation, cost savings, and directly transferable knowledge on a press interview.
collaborative leadership, Economic Development Institute, knowledge based organizations, Leadership studies, LeadSimm, San Jose Police Department (San Jose, CA), simulations
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations