Leaders are not only the people listed on an organization chart.

“We are all leaders,” says Camille Rutherford, Associate Professor of Education and Vice-Provost, Strategic Partnerships and International at Brock University. “You don’t need the corner office or your name on a door. All you need is a willingness to support people and influence them towards an organizational goal.”

Rutherford will be speaking about formal and informal leadership roles as they pertain to distributed leadership on Wednesday, June 17 at 11 a.m. as part of the next Business Breathers webinar.

The free weekly webinar series is facilitated by the Goodman School of Businesses’ Goodman Group and features 30 minutes of live industry and faculty expert-led discussions, followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer period. Topics focus on leadership, management and innovation, as well as the financial and social impacts of trending topics.

“Distributed leadership is not a prescription for how you should organize your business,” Rutherford says. “It’s a tool to determine how leadership is distributed across the organization through various roles, groups and even artifacts, like tools and resources. If you only acknowledge leaders by your organization’s hierarchy chart, you’re missing opportunities to grow and do better, especially when it comes to key leadership functions, such as setting goals and direction, and supporting the people in your organization.”

She explains that the easiest way to investigate distributed leadership is to ask employees who they go to for information and advice.

“The answer gives you an idea of where the real nodes of leadership influence are,” she says. “Very often the answer is different than the formal organization structure.”

There are many benefits of distributed leadership, says Rutherford, including greater organization resiliency, internal hiring and promotion, leadership succession and employee engagement.

“When employees understand they are leaders within their own areas, they take pride in what they do, are engaged with the organization and are motivated to achieve goals,” she says.

Rutherford also plans to discuss how technology can increase the scope and scale of leadership by enabling formal and informal leaders to interact with and influence people both within and outside of their organization.

Although the Business Breathers webinars are intended for the Niagara business community of entrepreneurs and leaders, everyone is welcome to participate, including Brock University students, alumni, faculty and staff.

Interested participants are asked to register online. A confirmation email will provide a Lifesize link to access the webinar at the date and time it is planned.

Upcoming Business Breathers:

Understanding distributed leadership
Presented by Camille Rutherford, Vice-Provost, Strategic Partnerships and International, Brock University
Wednesday, June 17 at 11 a.m.

COVID-19: Good governance or a good crisis for governance?
Presented by Samir Trabelsi, Professor, Goodman School of Business
Wednesday, June 24 at 11 a.m.

Recordings available for past webinars:

Working from home: Insights into the new norm
Roger Favero, Executive Vice-President Data and Technology for HomeEquity Bank, Jason O’Halloran, Partner with S+C Partners, and Glenn Skrubbeltrang, Lecturer with the Goodman School of Business.

Leadership presence
Barbara Devine, CEO and Founder of Impact and Performance

Managing through the unimaginable
Andrew Gaudes, Dean, Goodman School of Business

The ethics of exploiting loopholes
Paul Dunn, Professor, Goodman School of Business

Brave new worlds: How augmented reality transforms marketing
Joachim Scholz, Assistant Professor, Goodman School of Business