With the rise of AI and adaptive technologies in the workplace, capabilities once thought of as “soft skills” are becoming increasingly important to those in management and leadership roles. In fact, excelling at skills such as collaboration, communication, and conflict resolution is imperative for leaders to build connections across silos and beyond organizational boundaries, enabling teams to achieve jointly agreed goals.
A new guide by expert faculty at Hult International Business School maps out actionable leadership habits that connect collaboration with collective results. In The Leader’s Guide to Collaboration: How to use soft skills to get hard results, published this month by Pearson’s FT Publishing International series, leadership and psychology professor Guy Lubitsh and associate professor Mike Brent explain how to build the skills, mindset, and attitude to better collaborate with peers and team members to boost team morale, resilience, and outcome delivery. Lubitsh and Brent work closely with senior leadership teams at global organizations through their leadership development work at Hult Ashridge Executive Education—the Executive Education arm of Hult.
“Teamwork has never been more critical in a changing business world,” says Lubitsh. “Whether it is collaboration virtually or across generations at work, relationship building and developing those unique skills that make us human and able to connect on an emotional level to others are key to progressing both ourselves and our organizations.”
The Leader’s Guide to Collaboration explains how to establish a common purpose and set the stage for shared, important work. The book is meant as a practical guide for leaders who must engage high-performing teams to drive results.
“In the book, we talk about the 3P mode—purpose, people, and process—as a way to boost teamwork and be more successful,” says Brent. “It’s about building certain behaviors and having impactful conversations to drive accomplishments as a team, no matter the existing dynamics in your workplace.”
The guidance offered in the book is based on research-backed insights and cases, and includes worksheets, top tips, and online questionnaires to assess your collaboration skills, alongside practical tools for both leaders and teams.
Guy Lubitsh is Professor of Leadership & Psychology at Hult International Business School and an organizational psychologist, consultant, facilitator, executive coach, and speaker.
Mike Brent is an associate member of faculty and professor of practice in leadership at Hult Ashridge. He is also an accredited coach and author of several books on leadership.
Their book is available now.