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Boundary-spanning skills are essential for all leaders, especially those in government. Here’s how federal government workers can break down silos and foster collaboration.
We live in a world of vast collaborative potential. Yet, when times are tough, our natural tendency is to hunker down.
All too often, we focus on what divides us.
Battle lines are drawn. Organizational silos get taller. Worldviews shrink, attitudes narrow, and positions tighten. Without meaning to, we find ourselves separated by the natural boundaries of most organizations.
Then, these boundaries become borders, splitting groups into Us vs. Them. Without boundary spanning leadership skills, people struggle with fractured relationships, divisive conflict, diminished resources, and suboptimal results. Innovation grinds to a halt as groups compete with one another, instead of collaborating together, across the organization.
The flip side is also true. Boundaries are also frontiers — a place of emergent opportunity and new possibilities. Where boundaries collide, new ways of collaboration emerge. By definition, boundary spanning leadership is when leaders can work with a wide variety of others.
The most effective leaders are successful at spanning 5 common organizational boundaries, whether among peers (horizontal boundaries); between levels of the org chart (vertical boundaries); with external groups like customers or the supply chain (stakeholder boundaries); across age, gender, culture, ideology, etc. (demographic boundaries); and across locations (geographic boundaries). That’s why boundary spanning is the key to breaking down silos at your organization.
Your leaders need to be able to practice these 6 key boundary spanning leadership practices:
Start breaking down silos at your organization by equipping your team with these boundary spanning skills. We can deliver our world-class, research-backed boundary spanning leadership content to them — or you can.
You can use our proven content to deliver a workshop or internal training on boundary spanning either online or in person, whichever you prefer:
Deliver targeted training to key leaders or small groups — leverage our content on boundary spanning leadership to host a half-day leadership development workshop
Accelerate development across your entire organization with comprehensive access to boundary spanning content and all our leadership topics and solutions
Or, we can incorporate it as part of a larger initiative for your organization:
Combine with other topic modules and interactive experiences into a customized learning journey for your leaders
Organizations who have partnered with us to upskill their people’s boundary spanning leadership skills consistently tell us the same thing: their experience with CCL made a significant impact on their culture — and their bottom line.
But don’t just take our word for it — take theirs.
“The unit-of-effort, team-of-teams approach made us twice as powerful as we would have otherwise been.”
General Lloyd Austin
Talent Attraction & Development Manager
Novo Nordisk
“There are a lot of positive changes. People have started thinking more about communications and teams are more integrated. There were silos between teams, but now teams are talking to each other.”
Program Participant
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals
Our experts are here to help. Let’s have a conversation about breaking down silos at your organization and how our boundary spanning leadership content could help support your development initiatives.
Boundary-spanning skills are essential for all leaders, especially those in government. Here’s how federal government workers can break down silos and foster collaboration.
The most effective leaders work across boundaries, forging common ground with colleagues from differing positions, backgrounds, and locations. Evolve your approach with these boundary-spanning ideas.
Learn best practices for leading today’s hybrid workforce and how leaders and managers can foster an inclusive environment, boost employee engagement, and drive team performance.
Package our research-backed boundary spanning leadership content with other proven leadership development topics and solutions for a customized scalable solution perfect for your organization’s unique needs, context, and culture. Related topics include:
