Shared Leadership Case Study

Introduction

Kristín Linda Árnadóttir is the general director of the Environmental Agency of Iceland. She has worked as a lawyer for the Environmental Agency since 1. September 2007 and was pointed as the General Director in February 2008. She finished her Candidate degree (Cand. Jur) in 1998. She finished a Masters degree in the International Master´s Program in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science (LUMES) in 2002 and received her Masters degree LL.M in European law from Lund University in 2003. Along with her responsibilities as the General Director she has been a part time lecturer teaching environmental law in the law faculties of University of Iceland and Reykjavík University.

The shadowing took place on the 1st and 2nd of

In fact shared leadership is the basis on all levels in all work in the organisation, starting in the teams (Carson, B., Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007). Each team has offices clustered together. Outside each office cluster there is a board where each project is categorized according to it´s status and everyone can monitor the ongoing process of every task (figure 2.). The team based shared leadership approach is supportive for the employees and can also prevent them to become inactive or passive. It also provides the opportunity to intervene on earlier stages if employees get off track or become

In my observations I realized the extreme importance for interpersonal skills and networking. Even though I enjoy socializing and networking up to a certain point and I have always been a person that gets along with everyone, I have always considered myself as an introverted person and despite that I enjoy interaction with people I also need solitude. However, shadowing Kristín has inspired me to further develop my interpersonal skills. To me Kristín is both a leader and a manager and I observed her in both roles. Communicating vision and motivation in the larger contex and scheduling, planning, organizing and monitoring, making decisions and kindly guiding her subordinates on a personal level,. I hope that I will be fortunate enough one day to be able to work alongside or even manage such a workforce and then making the most of her preeminent qualities and use it to guide me to further develop my own leadership and management