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Enacting responsible leadership in cross-sector partnerships: A dynamic choreography of power
1HEC Montréal, Canada, jfharvey@hec.ca.
Abstract:
How can leaders guide diverse organizations to work together on society's biggest challenges when power is unevenly distributed? Cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) bring together companies, governments, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to address complex problems, yet their success hinges on how leaders navigate competing interests and shifting power dynamics. This study examines a high-profile CSP involving a Fortune 500 company, two international development organizations, and an NGO. Drawing on Mary Parker Follett's ideas about "power-with" and "power-over," I show how NGO leaders combined collaborative and more coercive tactics to move the partnership forward. My analysis reveals that responsible leadership (RL) in CSPs is not a static trait or style but evolves through a dynamic choreography of power as challenges and priorities change. The findings offer practical lessons for leaders seeking to balance ethics, inclusion, and influence in multi-stakeholder collaborations, and they extend theory by reframing RL as a shifting, context-sensitive process rather than a fixed style.
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