Leadership in Action: Bridging Boundaries: Meeting the Challenge of Workplace Diversity

FINDING LINKS

The role of boundary-spanning leadership is to facilitate cross-boundary interactions, thereby creating the linkages necessary to move ideas, information, people, and resources where they are needed most. Their positional authority allows leaders to establish a number of these linkages directly through their actions and words. At the same time, the three challenges described earlier impose limitations on this ability of leaders to intervene directly. As a result, boundary-spanning leaders often act indirectly, through enabling or facilitating the cross-boundary interactions of others.

Four boundary-spanning tactics— suspending, reframing, nesting, and weaving—can facilitate positive cross-boundary interactions.

Suspending: Creating ...