Leadership Networks

Defining peer leadership

Peer leadership is the capacity of people who share similar identities, circumstances, or contexts to provide each other with trusted and relevant information, advice, and support when it is needed most. Peer leadership prioritizes listening and problem-solving among leaders in a safe environment where peers can speak openly and honestly with each other, outside the structures of power and authority within which they live and work. In recent years there has been increased investment in developing and supporting peer leadership networks (Backer, 2008). Reasons for this increase include the increasing complexity of problems and challenges that confront leaders, and the loneliness and frustration they often feel shouldering the expectations of others. The best peer leadership programs recognize that leaders have as much to learn from each other as they do from outside experts.

The value of peer leadership networks

Peer leadership networks support personal and professional growth, and leadership development. High-value peer leadership networks embrace diversity and inclusion without losing a sense of shared identity. They give leaders an opportunity to ask for advice-to admit what they do not know-without having to be concerned about negative consequences from those they supervise or from those who have power over them.

Examples of peer leadership networks

The Sierra Health Leadership Network

The Sierra Health Leadership Network includes 130+ nonprofit executive leaders from 21 northern and central California counties who work on health-related issues. All of these leaders have participated in the Sierra Health Leadership Program, a nine-month program of retreats, leadership training sessions, team action learning projects, and an alumni network. Leaders bond with each other during their leadership program experience which includes many opportunities for self-reflection, clarification of core values, and finding one's "noble cause" in conversation with others. The foundation hosts retreats three times a year to reinvigorate relationships; reinforce core learning from the program; explore new topics and ideas; and expand connections to other cohorts. In an evaluation of the alumni network, Reinelt, Kubo and Hoppe (2005) found the most important outcomes to be:

• Peer support. Listening to one another and providing support in order to reduce feelings of isolation
• Peer Coaching. Acting as sounding boards for one another to share stories and advice about challenges like how to manage boards, how to achieve financial sustainability, or how to build alliances for broader impact.
• Resources. Sharing resources with each other, e.g., speaking at each other's event, trading or providing services, getting quick reliable information to a question.
• Job assistance. Providing each other with leads to new job opportunities and job references.
• Introductions. Introducing each other to people in each other's networks.
• Collaboration. Initiating joint inquiry or collaborations around shared issues and common problems.

CompanyCommand

CompanyCommand is an Army website for junior officers to discuss challenges and seek advice from their peers. The idea for CompanyCommand grew out of nightly conversations between two company commanders who lived down the street from one another just beyond their base in Honolulu. They got together to talk through the challenges they faced in their new assignments. The value of those conversations led to the creation of the CompanyCommand website. CompanyCommand is a site "where junior officers facing professional challenges can seek advice from others who have similar situations…. CompanyCommand is designed to help individuals improve their leadership skills through the sharing of experiences and advice" (Dixon 2006).

Featured as a breakthrough idea in the Harvard Business Review, CompanyCommand challenges traditional assumptions about the training of future leaders. "Instead of drawing on the wisdom of anointed experts, CompanyCommand provides young officers with knowledge based on the daily struggles of frontline professionals like themselves. Why the emphasis on peers? [Because] knowledge accumulated by experts over the years may no longer be relevant in a rapidly changing battle environment like Iraq. People have greater trust in, and therefore are more receptive to, advice from someone in their situations" (Dixon, 2006). Other benefits of peer leadership networks described by Dixon include emotional support, and answers to context-specific questions that come "just in time."

Key characteristics of peer leadership networks

The formation of close personal and professional relationships through bonding is a key characteristic of peer leadership networks. Often this is intentionally facilitated in leadership development programs through face-to-face convenings that use tools such as Open Space (Owen, 1998) and World Café (Brown, 2005) to emphasize listening, dialogue, and storytelling; or by creating opportunities for leaders to work on projects together.

Evaluating Peer Leadership Networks

Some evaluation questions to ask about peer leadership networks include:

• Has the number of connections between leaders in the network increased?
• Is there a strong network core that can sustain the network over time?
• Is the network diverse?
• Is there a high level of trust among members in the network?
• Do members share advice with each other that supports their personal and professional development, and makes them more effective leaders?
• Does participating in the network correlate with greater career success or job satisfaction?

Using SNA to Evaluate Peer Leadership Networks

One use of SNA to assess peer leadership networks, especially those that form through leadership programs, is to take "before" and "after" snapshots of network connectivity. A "before" snapshot of relatively disconnected individuals indicates diverse recruiting; an "after" snapshot of more dense connections indicates that bonding has occurred and a trusted community has been formed.

Relationship questions such as "how well do you know this person" and "how often do you communicate one-on-one with this person" are useful survey questions for this type of assessment. Allowing respondents a range of options is especially helpful (e.g., "I don't know this person," "I know this person somewhat," and "I know this person well"). Successful peer leadership networks will transform many "don't know" relationships into "know somewhat" relationships. "Know well" relationships are more likely to develop when peers collaborate on a project.

With such social network data, several interesting inquiries are possible. For example, the maps of Figure 5 show communication between members of a single peer leadership network. The maps all show the same snapshot in time, two years after the original formation of the network; however, each map highlights a different frequency of communication.

Each level of communication pictured in Figure 5 provides different insights about relationships in the network. The "at least three times a year" level is the least interesting: it confirms that everyone is showing up. The "at least once a week" level helps outsiders and/or newcomers get a quick sense of where strong relationships exist in the network; however, these relationships are usually obvious to network insiders. The most interesting map filters out both low and high extremes and presents only the mid-range, in this case "about once a month." This mid-range map reveals the heart of the peer leadership network and its core/periphery structure. A large network core can be a sign of strength-it is likely to hold together even if one or two people leave. A well-populated network periphery can be a sign of network adaptability-it brings new ideas and resources into the core and offers burned-out members of the core a place for sabbatical. In the "Issues and Risks" section of this paper, we describe the careful consideration required when interpreting core/periphery maps.

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