Shared Leadership Statement and Principles

From our mission statement on shared leadership 

The Aalto PHYS Diversity Team (DT) is committed to creating an environment of practiced diversity, inclusiveness  and  equity  at  the  Department  of  Applied  Physics  at  Aalto  University.  One  means  for implementing cultural changes is shared leadership. By successfully implementing shared  leadership,  the  DT  hopes  to  act  as  a  role-model  for  other  groups  within  the  Department and the University,  to ultimately  spread  shared  leadership  and  induce  the  anticipated  change  towards  a  more  diverse, inclusive and equal environment. What shared leadership means for our team is a set of practices that ensure that we successfully and correctly implement shared leadership in our team: 

• representation of all stakeholders on the team: from undergraduates to professors, including admin and HR 
• equal access to all PHYS DT tools, notes and resources in confidential shared online space 
• rotation of all duties to stage our team  meetings   
• mutual respect: All  team  members  are  considered  equal  and  everyone  has  an  equal  voice  in  the meetings.  All  the  members  have  equal  powers  of  decision  making without  any  hierarchy.  We  follow democratic principles to reach a mutual agreement or decision 
• equal contributions (pts  1&9):  DT  tasks  will  be  divided  between  team  members  to  ensure  equal engagement and distribution of labour. Each task will be performed by a team of two or more people to facilitate discussion and counsel. 
• celebrating success:  when  we  achieve  positive  outcomes,  the  entire  team  will  celebrate  the achievement of joint objectives. 
• identifying progress in  shared  leadership  thinking.  Each  3  months,  we  will  introduce  a  shared leadership  checkpoint  in  our  monthly  meetings 
• identifying achievements in shared leadership. Together, all the above practices should result in a rise in a) trust within the team, b) confidence and participation of all members, c) feeling of team spirit, d)  sense  of  well-being  from  achieving  shared  objectives,  f)  enthusiasm  for  future  work.