When does top-down leadership work — and when does collaboration work better?

Governance September 15, 2026

Is strong leadership about one person making the decisions, or about creating space for people to work together? In most situations, collaboration produces better long-term results.

Organizations can easily fall into an either-or mindset: I'm the manager or I'm not. I'm the one making the decisions or someone else is. But leadership does not have to work that way. We can be collaborative and work together.

Earlier in my career, I was part of a management program where we studied which teams worked best: collaborative teams or more traditional top-down teams. Nine out of ten times, the collaborative teams got better results.

There was an exception.

When top-down works

In a dire emergency, a more top-down leadership model could be more successful. In a short-term crisis, there are moments when somebody needs to make decisions quickly, communicate clearly, and move information from the top down.

There is an efficiency to that style of leadership. But efficiency and long-term effectiveness are not always the same thing.

Why collaboration wins outside a crisis

Outside of an immediate crisis, collaboration allows an organization to bring more perspectives into the room. In the management studies I participated in, collaborative environments produced outcomes that were more creative, more user-friendly, and, in some cases, came in under budget.

That distinction becomes especially important in nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits are rarely made up of one kind of expertise. There is the board of directors. There are staff members. There may be technical or subject-matter professionals inside the organization and experts outside of it.

When an organization is facing a difficult problem, the temptation can be to tighten control. I have experienced firsthand why doing the opposite can matter.

When a nonprofit I was leading faced a crisis that could have ended its very existence, we successfully navigated the crisis by working together. I found it very important to work with the board of directors, the professionals on the team, and experts from outside the organization to reach the best solution in the long term.

Conversely, years later, when a faction of the board attempted to lead in a bubble, trouble ensued.

What this actually requires from a leader

That doesn't mean every decision needs to be made by committee. Good leadership still requires someone to decide when a decision needs to be made. The question is whether leaders are using authority because the situation truly demands speed, or because authority feels easier than collaboration.

There are circumstances where fast, centralized decision-making is necessary. But once the immediate crisis has passed, organizations benefit from opening the conversation back up.

The short version

Collaboration does not mean the absence of leadership. It means recognizing that leadership can include listening, asking questions, and using the expertise already available around you.

Sometimes the strongest decision a leader can make is not to have every answer themselves. It is to bring the right people into the room.