I have been fascinated with the topic of power sharing and participatory
leadership since I first studied it twenty years ago as an undergraduate student of
sociology. I see leadership behaviors or skills falling into three overarching categories:
technical/task, relational/ relationship and facilitative/process. I believe that collaborative
and shared leadership are especially connected to the two-thirds that make up the
relationship and process skills. The technical skills receive too much emphasis while the
“soft skills” (the mix of relational, facilitative and process skills) do not receive enough
attention.