ABSTRACT

The greatest challenges we face today—disease, poverty, climate change, and natural disasters—have no regard for national, cultural, political, or economic borders. And yet, the organizations we have created to confront these challenges most often operate within traditional geographic, national, demographic, and organizational boundaries, making collaboration with others to find solutions to these challenges difficult. The responsibility to overcome barriers to collaboration and work across boundaries rests upon the shoulders of today’s organizational leaders. In this chapter we examine the important role that leaders play in spanning boundaries between individuals, teams, divisions, and organizations. We explain what a boundary-spanning mindset is and how leaders can begin to adopt this mindset. We then identify the types of behaviors that leaders must engage in to span boundaries effectively. Next, we focus on how leaders can use connecting and networking behaviors to develop an inclusive network to more effectively span boundaries. As part of this, we lead readers through an activity to map their own network and identify opportunities for improvement.