The concept of collaborative leadership has emerged as potentially a new method of operating within Australia's national security community. With the publication of the 2008 Review of Homeland and Border Security (also known as the ‘Smith Review’) and the subsequent Prime Minister’s National Security Statement, the need for greater collaboration within a significantly expanded national...

The importance of collaborative leadership is widely acknowledged in Australia's national security community. But what is collaborative leadership? How do national security professionals learn about it? This National Security College Occasional Paper addresses both these questions and explores the extent to which a shared understanding of collaborative leadership exists in today's national security community.

This literature review accompanies Occasional Paper 1. It examines the meaning of collaborative leadership from a number of different perspectives, and includes short cases to illustrate this concept from the viewpoint of national security organisations.