Leading Across Boundaries: Creating Collaborative Agencies in a Networked World

1. The Partners Have a Shared, Specific Interest or Purpose

Roosevelt Johnson didn’t make the mistake of assuming that University of California (UC) leaders shared his enthusiasm about increasing diversity at the graduate student level. Rather, he began by asking questions and listening, which are among the collaborative leader’s most important skills. In doing so he learned that the first factor required for successful collaboration already existed: leaders at the nine UC campuses had a strong shared interest in graduate student diversity. That was an important discovery. The fact that Johnson was passionate about this issue would have been irrelevant had there been little interest among the deans and key faculty. Fortunately, the first ...