Grounded View of Partnership-Building in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and North America
By Stephen D. Pierce | September 2004 | View Full Text
Abstract
Bridging leadership is a style of leadership that focuses on creating and sustaining effective working relationships among key partners and stakeholders. By "bridging" different perspectives and opinions often found across the breadth of different stakeholders, a common agenda can begin to be developed and shared in order to find solutions to social and economic problems.
However, building effective partnerships is made difficult by a combination of factors, including situations of inherent conflict and a general lack of knowledge regarding how partnerships work. Partnering, it seems, is far easier said than done. It requires a unique style of leadership to gather the type of resources needed and convene
relevant actors for collaboration, as well as managing the process once the partnership has been established.
Nevertheless, examples of successful partnerships, though not plentiful, exist in nearly every country in the world. The underlying premise of this paper is that by exploring successful cases of collaboration and comparing the results, we can identify those factors that enable people to bridge social divides and build effective partnerships.
In 2002-03, Synergos brought together a group of experienced scholars and practitioners from around the world to discover how leaders from a number of countries have successfully bridged divides to improve the quality of life for their constituents and communities. This paper summarizes the results of that effort.
Partnership & Collaboration | Partnership-Building Processes | Bridging Leadership | Partnership Case Studies | Africa (Sub-Saharan) | Americas | Southeast Asia
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