While lot is spoken on the subject of collaboration within and among organizations, creating such a state persistently proves to be among the most difficult tasks of leadership.  The first North American conference on the unique concept of Teams of Leaders (ToL) presented the introduction to practical leadership methods needed to rapidly attain the state of “mission oriented collaboration.”

The concept of ToL was developed by the United States Army and used as a practical decision support tool by the European Command. ToL is a highly structured approach focused on the optimal fusion of people and technology and aimed at the rapid development of collaborative High Performing Leader Teams across boundaries of organizations, functions, and cultures.  ToL maximizes the use of complex skill-sets possessed by already proven leaders and promotes the emergence of actionable understanding based onshared attitudes, confidence and trust.

The “by invitation only” conference was held between the 10th and 11th May 2012 at the Ivey Spencer Leadership Centre in London, Ontario, and introduced fifty of the most senior executives of Canadian and US business, academy, healthcare, and law enforcement to the theory and practice of ToL. Our distinguished speakers (bio-sketches appended), provided insight on the results that can be attained through properly implemented collaborative work in complex environments of business, military and disaster response operations, university-community collaboration, and ealthcare.

The conference was organized by Professors Candace Gibson and Gerard Seijts assisted by the scientific and administrative members of the Centre for Collaborative Leadership in Healthcare (CCLH – Scientific Director, Dr. Dag von Lubitz) at Central Michigan University, and of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership (IIL) at Ivey School of Business.  Dr. Gibson serves as Associate Professor of Pathology at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Director, CCLH, while Dr. Seijts is  Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Richard Ivey School of Business and the Executive Director of IIL, both at the University of Western Ontario.