Leaders as Architects of Collaboration

Great collaboration doesn't happen. It's designed. So why do so many leadership teams still treat it as something that should just emerge naturally?

In this episode of the PennCLO Podcast, The Practitioner Scholar, Dr. Sharon M. Ravitch speaks with PennCLO mentor and lecturer Dr. Phillip Ellis about designing organizations for collaboration, resilience, and adaptive leadership.

Based on Phillip’s chapter in Leaders as Architects of Change: Designing Organizations for Connection and Resilience in Times of Uncertainty, this conversation explores why many teams struggle to collaborate in a world of uncertainty,and how leaders can create the conditions for deeper trust, innovation, and collective problem-solving.

Together, they unpack:

Why collaboration is a leadership design challenge

How “systems of knowing” shape teams and organizationsWhy traditional leadership models struggle in uncertain environmentsHow leaders can foster more adaptive and resilient culturesLeaders who treat collaboration as a soft skill keep getting stuck results. This conversation makes the case for designing it instead.

In the book, The Seeing Gap, co-written by Dr. Phillips and Dr. Ravitch, they turn the lens on AI. Phillip and Sharon are writing it in the open on Substack, inviting readers to help shape it as it takes form. When he’s not writing or teaching, he’s on stages and in rooms with leadership teams, designing communities and immersive workshops that help organizations stop talking about adaptability and start practicing it.