A handbook for leading together

The Swedish edition open on a book stand at chapter 3, Att förändra kultur och hur vi möter varandra, with the first page of Elena’s story — The Swedish edition, open at chapter 3, where Elena’s story begins.

Many public organisations are asked to work in more collaborative and preventive ways, but their structures are still built on top-down hierarchies. The handbook is for people who feel that something has to change: those who drive change, those who decide, and curious employees who want to know what leading together looks like in practice. The book mixes ideas, practices, voices from the field, movement exercises from dance, and stories.

It grew out of two research projects with the Swedish public sector, both led by RISE: Leading From Afar: Hybrid Leadership Practices for Well-being, funded by AFA Försäkring, and Embodying Self-Leadership and Distributed Leadership in the Swedish Public Sector, funded by Forte. In both, I worked as a qualitative researcher, together with Nina Božič Yams and Laura Gottlieb, the other two authors of the book.

The story of Elena

I also worked on the storytelling. Each chapter opens with a short piece of fiction about Elena, a manager in elderly care in a Swedish municipality who tries to lead differently in a system full of barriers. Elena is not real, but her story is not invented either: her doubts, her decisions and her setbacks are a collage of what we heard and saw in the projects.

The launch

We presented the book at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm on 4 June 2026. More than 70 people came to the launch.

Blurred halftone photo of a full room seen from behind the audience, with a stage, two speakers and a screen showing the cover of Att leda tillsammans — The launch at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern.

Read the book

Stacks of the handbook on a table: the Swedish edition, Att leda tillsammans, in green and pink, and the English edition, Transforming how we lead together, in pink and lilac — The handbook, in Swedish and English.

The handbook is free to read and share, both in English and Swedish, under a Creative Commons licence.

Bozic Yams, N., Gottlieb, L., & Aranda Muñoz, Á. (2026). Transforming how we lead together: Moving from hierarchies towards co-creation. Zenodo.
Bozic Yams, N., Gottlieb, L., & Aranda Muñoz, Á. (2026). Att leda tillsammans: Från hierarkier mot samskapande [Leading together: From hierarchies towards co-creation]. Zenodo.