Let’s imagine a community working to address food insecurity. Many stakeholders have a vested interest in addressing this challenge: agencies from public health and law enforcement, community nonprofit organizations, community volunteer organizations, local businesses, and those who receive food support services. Each group has their own values, their own mission or agenda, as well as their own set of non-negotiables of what they are and aren’t willing to do.
Boundary spanning leaders will seek to understand the unique values, skills, and expectations each stakeholder brings to the collaborative work. They will cultivate trustworthy connections across this network to help find common ground and mobilize this group toward a common goal. And ultimately, they will develop this network, helping them learn to function as a coordinated team of teams primed to address the diverse challenges posed by food insecurity.
What is Boundary Spanning Leadership?
In today’s complex, interconnected world, leaders and organizations must transcend boundaries — be they cultural, organizational, or geographic — to collaborate effectively and drive meaningful impact for their shared work. These conditions necessitate a more effective way to collaborate.
To begin, let’s think about the word collaboration. We’re co-laboring. Laboring together is inherently relational, but so often we treat our co-labor as a set of tasks to be done. Operating this way limits our capacity to impact our most intractable challenges.
Boundary Spanning Leadership training enhances the problem-solving capacity of a collaborative network through intentional relational development. The quest for boundary spanning leaders is to develop a sufficient level of understanding, trust, and shared capability across their network to enable outcomes none of the interested parties could accomplish on their own. To expand this potential, leaders leverage the unique qualities as well as the shared motivations of the boundary spanning network and align them toward a common goal.
We can imagine similar types of challenges in organizational life, too. A group of teams might be asked to collaborate on a strategic project, or an organization-wide culture change initiative might seek to advance an EDI strategy. Each of these cases can benefit from boundary spanning leadership.
We’ve referenced how relationships play a pivotal role in shared work, but we haven’t addressed the kinds of boundaries that exist across these relationships. Our research has pinpointed 5 types of boundaries that can influence the collaborative process:
- Vertical boundaries that span across different levels of authority.
- Horizontal boundaries that stretch across various functions and areas of expertise.
- Stakeholder boundaries that encompass external groups and interests.
- Geographic boundaries that cover different markets and distances.
- Demographic boundaries that extend across diverse groups and differences, such as ideology.
Boundary spanning leadership helps us recognize boundaries and provides a framework to foster more effective collaboration across them. In essence, boundary spanning helps us to transcend limitations imposed by silos and tap into the collective strength of networks.
Who Can Benefit From Boundary Spanning Leadership?
Hint: It’s everyone, no matter their role.
Have you ever been in a meeting that’s going smoothly until a comment from someone throws you off balance? Or perhaps you’ve struggled to make progress with a group due to differing assumptions or unclear objectives? Have you taken time to deeply understand the values that individuals and organizations operate within? Boundary spanning practices can help in these situations. They provide us with methods to better understand our contributions, appreciate others’ perspectives, and forge new routes to our shared goals.
There are important things we want to do as nonprofit leaders; big, impactful, transformational things for our communities. We may have the vision, passion, and skills required, but we likely don’t have control over all the pieces that need to come together to drive transformational change. We need other people. We need effective ways to work together. Our Boundary Spanning Leadership training offers a tested framework with practical tactics that enable effective shared work.
Even if not all of us are driving transformation across a community, it’s reasonable to assume we all need to work with different kinds of people and organizations to serve our communities. Thus, we all can benefit from boundary spanning. It’s an approach that aids us in breaking down the critical components necessary for complex collaborative work.
Brené Brown says, “Clear is kind.” Boundary Spanning Leadership training invites us to continually clarify, refine, and co-create our rules of engagement. The practices help ensure we’re operating under the same set of assumptions. This type of clarity is a kindness for all involved. So often we rush this part of the process in our collaborative work and end up with conflict and confusion that could have been avoided.
Boundary spanning isn’t just a technique, it’s a mindset that fosters collaboration and shared success. We believe that all leaders can benefit from adopting this mindset.
What Are the Core Strategies & Practices of Boundary Spanning?
The Boundary Spanning framework consists of 3 key strategies, each supported by 2 practices:
Strategy 1: Managing Boundaries — It may seem surprising, but the first strategy focuses on differentiation and emphasizes understanding the unique values, skills, and expectations each member brings to the collaboration. The practices here are:
- Buffering creates a safe space where boundaries are well-defined, and members can openly communicate their priorities, expectations, and needs without fear.
- Reflecting promotes respect and awareness by highlighting both the similarities and differences within the group, fostering a sense of common ground.
Strategy 2: Forging Common Ground — The second strategy focuses on integration; building trust, refining a shared vision, and mobilizing towards a common goal. It can help groups gain deeper insight into the problems they are trying to solve while building community and commitment in service of the solutions being developed. The practices are:
- Connecting builds trust by encouraging group members to know each other on a personal level, fostering a sense of confidence and integrity.
- Mobilizing cultivates a sense of community, ownership, and accountability, enabling the group to work collectively towards their common goal.
Strategy 3: Discovering New Frontiers — The third strategy helps you leverage the transformative impact of Boundary Spanning Leadership practices. Using it, boundary spanners learn to operate as an agile network that functions as a team of teams.
- Weaving fosters interdependence and collective learning, enhancing the group’s overall capability.
- Transforming enables reinvention and discovery of new possibilities by encouraging members to cross over into new territories and perspectives.
These strategies and practices offer a comprehensive approach to boundary spanning, helping groups navigate complex challenges, explore new horizons, and redefine future possibilities.
What Motivated Us to Fine-Tune This Content?
We originally developed Boundary Spanning Leadership training as a tool to understand how we collaborate across differences. It has proven to be a valuable framework for teams, especially teams that learn and practice the skills together. And it’s most impactful for our clients when they practice it while actively engaging in shared work.
As faculty interacted with clients, we noticed that while our Boundary Spanning Leadership training resonated with participants, they sometimes struggled to apply this learning at their organizations. Some leaders found the content overly theoretical. We noticed that when our participants were learning boundary spanning concepts while engaged with their collaborative work teams, they had opportunities to apply the lessons in real time. Community coalitions, intact work teams, and interdepartmental initiatives engaging in this learning and practicing were able to integrate the strategies and practices more effectively. This immediately made the concepts less theoretical and more practical. We wanted to learn from this observation to better serve our clients who are unable to attend our programs with full intact teams, so our challenge became replicating the impact. What would enable them to more effectively bring boundary spanning strategies back to their teams?
To address this challenge, we collaborated with several long-standing clients actively involved in boundary spanning leadership. Our aim was to develop resources that would make the training more tactical and practical. We wanted to help leaders consistently apply boundary spanning leadership strategies and practices in their daily work, driving towards tangible objectives with intention.
Understanding the ‘Why’ of Each Strategy
One of our initial adaptations was to underline the “why” for each strategy.
Let’s consider managing boundaries as an example. Why is it crucial? Because in any boundary spanning endeavor, there’s an us and them. Overlooking this fact and assuming we all share the same motivations, priorities, and work processes can lead to assumptions that hinder progress. The managing boundaries strategy helps us articulate our differences, enhance respect, understand our motivations, navigate conflict, and establish a foundation of agreements and expectations.
We found it was helpful to create a litmus-type question to assess how well we might be managing boundaries: Are we having the conversations we need to do difficult things together? (Not once, not sometimes, but do we consistently communicate and then follow-up as needed to make meaningful progress?) Or do we have meetings after the meeting? Do we covertly whisper to others who share our point of view? If we’re not able to answer this litmus question affirmatively, then we need to enhance our boundary management capabilities.
When leaders can understand what effective boundary management is, and what insufficient boundary management is, this knowledge can help them gauge whether they need to focus more on managing boundaries or whether they’re able to address other areas of boundary spanning in a productive way.
Applying the Practices
After defining why each strategy is important, we then turn to each of the 6 practices. We wanted to create descriptions and tactics that enable leaders to easily identify when boundary spanning is needed and how to leverage the practices in real time.
We began by creating “warning signs” and “positive indicators” that alert teams to where they are in the boundary spanning process. For example, a warning sign for the connecting practice is “overly passive and / or active members” of the team. All team members can quickly see if someone isn’t participating or is dominating the discussion. They can then work together to reconnect, using 1 of the 10 connecting tactics we identified, including buddy systems and creating third spaces.
Let’s take another example. You’re part of a team that has an agreed upon goal, and you have active and engaged team members with a high degree of trust, but your team can’t seem to get the larger organization to make progress. What could be standing in the way? Perhaps your team has interdependencies with other groups. Are you hesitant to ask other groups for input? One of the warning signs for weaving is “hesitant to place trust in other groups to resolve problems.” By looking at this warning sign, the team can take deliberate and thoughtful steps to better weave their work into the organizational whole. These “warning signs” and “positive indicators” take the emotion out of the moment, redirecting potential frustration to action items.
As teams evolve, these tools prove useful. We also created a managing boundaries canvas, a 1-page document that encapsulates the team’s key objectives, values, and collaboration methods. It’s a tangible way to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Why Does Our Approach to Understanding & Bridging Boundaries Work So Well?
Our approach is based on over a decade of studying leaders who excel at navigating differences. This research spanned all leadership levels, sectors, and 6 continents. Our approach works because it’s rooted in the real-world experiences of leaders who effectively span boundaries.
Let’s go back to our example of a community coalition facing a growing food insecurity crisis. Several organizations were already working to address the issue, but a lack of coordination led to inefficiencies. To include all stakeholders and improve coordination, the coalition employed the Boundary Spanning Leadership model.
To create psychological safety, they began by identifying a neutral space for stakeholders to meet. They developed ground rules emphasizing respect and addressed what was in bounds and out of bounds for the discussion. By taking these deliberate steps, the coalition reduced defensiveness among the partners.
To foster understanding, leaders organized listening sessions where each group could share their goals and challenges. Nonprofits explained the logistical challenges of running food pantries, businesses shared concerns about liability and logistical costs, and community groups highlighted neighborhoods often overlooked in food distribution efforts. These sessions helped stakeholders understand each other’s perspectives and build empathy.
To help connect people on a human level, the coalition encouraged 1-on-1meetings with those who don’t typically work together, like a nonprofit leader and a grocery store manager. They made time to connect outside of regular meetings to build personal relationships and trust. The group co-created a shared vision: “Ensure every resident has consistent access to nutritious food within the next 3 years.”
Coalition leaders facilitated workshops to identify overlapping interests, such as reducing food waste (businesses) and expanding distribution to underserved areas (nonprofits and community groups). The initiative implemented pilot projects that required collaboration. Stakeholders shared resources, such as technology to track donations and volunteers.
The collaborative efforts resulted in a significant reduction in food insecurity within 2 years, a streamlined food recovery system that diverted tons of food from landfills annually, and stronger relationships among stakeholders, leading to new initiatives. More importantly, this experience transformed how they approach community challenges, fostering a culture of collaboration across boundaries. This group effectively used boundary spanning leadership to break down silos, build trust, and create innovative solutions for complex social issues.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Our Boundary Spanning Leadership training codifies approaches of effective leaders, inviting us to learn from their experiences. Leading in the social sector often requires us to span boundaries to achieve our objectives. Our aim is to help you understand what you, as a leader, can do to foster a thriving collaborative environment in service of the vital work you’re doing.