Joint working for health and social outcomes: the partnership‐leadership mantra

Abstract

Inclusion and participation have become key values steering the policies of many governments. Hence, partnerships are now considered increasingly prominent vehicles for stakeholder synergy, added value, collaborative advantage and building local capacities to address health and social concerns. However, generally leadership across organisational boundaries has received little attention, and particularly partnership leadership represents a central challenge in any collective undertaking.As an example, this paper starts by shedding light on the meaning of partnership. It then poses several questions in order to navigate the partnership‐leadership mantra. The paper examines the skills of leaders in five South African community partnerships as reported from the perspectives of each partnership and each participating stakeholder group. It describes the uniqueness of how each partnership views its leaders and the distinctiveness of how each stakeholder appraises its leadership. It highlights diffuse and shared leadership in collaborative settings, and it encourages the nurturing of emergent leaders. It concludes that one size of leadership does not fit all partnerships.