Collaborative leadership is at its strongest at the point of contact. This leadership challenges the traditional leader-follower, top-down approach. Collaborative leadership is often self-organizing. It respects internal and external stakeholders as peers, and embraces diversity, creativity and divergence. This means that collaborative leadership. can be messy. The diagram from Creative Desktop illustrates some of the types of collaborators that exist in an organization. When you are working in a virtual team it is helpful to recognise that different team members approach working across cultures, time zones and geographies in very different ways. Whilst stereotyping is always prejudicial, this image offers a tongue-in-cheek perspective on why collaboration is so critical for organizations, but also so very, very difficult to achieve.