Is Shared Leadership a Real Thing?

I have to be honest, I have been thinking about writing this article for a long time. In the Spring, an organization approached me about doing some work on an organization managing through change. Without a clearly defined succession plan in place they were considering a number of ways to get through a leadership crisis and they were curious about my thoughts on shared leadership. In this case, shared leadership meant that two current leaders within the organization would redistribute the duties of the former CEO.