Some people think leadership is the act of saying, “Come this way.” They think the leader is solely responsible for setting the goal and the direction. Worse, they might think the leader is the person who tells people what to do and how to do it.
True, parents do that with children, especially when the children are too young to understand the consequences.
IME, parental models don’t work with adults. Well, in organizations, managers can reinforce the behaviors they want with specific rewards, such as titles or money, but that can lead to malicious compliance.
Instead, we can have a more nuanced discussion of leadership as adults, and especially as peers.
What Leadership Can Mean
When I think of leadership, I think of how we decide on all these aspects:
- Decide on the goal we want to accomplish.
- Organize ourselves to accomplish that goal.
- Our agreements/culture so we can work together.
That’s when I think of Weinberg’s MOIJ Model, which is the image in this post. MOIJ doesn’t define how to do those things—it’s one of those meta ways to see the state. Does this group need motivation, organization, information, or a jiggle to start and then decide?
That’s why would-be leaders need to observe before they act.
Too often, the people who want to lead using parental models don’t observe first. Instead, they act first. That action reduces the group’s autonomy. Worse, it removes anyone’s internal motivation, which is how we get work done. There’s a continuum of control with autonomy, and that continuum affects how we think about leadership.
Leadership Emerges (or Not) from the Continuum of Control and Autonomy
I created this image for a talk about distributed teams at work. But I think it also works for volunteer teams or groups.
The tighter some “leader” holds onto control in various ways, the less autonomy anyone has. That means the team is less likely to be motivated. They don’t care about how the leader organizes them. They don’t seek information. And worse of all, they don’t try to jiggle the leader who has the information to rethink how the leader works.
As a result, people are less likely to use their initiative. The team’s morale decreases. Then the leader wonders why the team “never finishes anything.” Or why no one is “invested” in their work.
Without autonomy, the team isn’t working on their work—they’re working on the leader’s work.
That means that leader will happily lead that team to defeat and not realize what’s happening. (See Management Myth 15: I Need People to Work Overtime for how many people experience this problem.)
Unless there are people willing to take the risk of snatching leadership from the jaws of defeat.
Discover Your Leadership
If you observe this problem in your organization and you want to fix it, ask yourself what the leader needs. Does this leader need motivation to change? Or organization or information? Maybe that leader needs a good jiggle.
Remember these things if you use the MOIJ model:
- Decide if you want to invest your time and energy in this organization. Change rarely happens overnight.
- Observe before you act to choose the first possible action that makes sense.
- Jiggle with the smallest possible jiggle, an example of adaptable leadership. When I was learning to manage my extroversion, Jerry often put one of his hands on my shoulder or on one of my hands. Many of us extroverts talk with our entire bodies, so bringing my attention back to my body was all the cue I needed.
The more a titled leader shares their leadership by offering more autonomy, the more the team will rise to everyone’s expectations. Sure, the team might need information, especially about what those expectations are. That’s why teams need specific goals.
As the team works, the team might need to revisit their information, organization, and motivation.
And sometimes, the most effective leadership is a jiggle.
That’s the question this week: What does leadership mean to you?
Leading or managing are often synonyms for telling people what to do and expecting in silence to get the credits for the success.
I totally agree with the statement that this ‚clinging onto control‘ more likely demotivates the team and leads to a mentality ‚I do what I’m told – period‘.
True leadership does not happen in the front row. True leadership happens in the second row or maybe even backstage.
A leader has to define a goal, listen to the team, find out what‘s necessary for success and provide exactly that.
I believe all teams want to succeed. A leader needs the confidence and trust to pass the responsibility on to the team.
For me a true leader is leading by enabling success.
I agree with everything you said except for the part about leadership not happening in the front row. That’s because I’ve been in leadership positions where I did lead from the front. And some where I led by facilitating others. (Is that sideways?) Still others where I led from behind.
However, I am totally with you on your last sentence, that true leadership enables success. Very true.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You‘re right – the front row analogy is not really hitting the nail on the head. Let me clarify that.
I was thinking about the prevention paradox – you don‘t get credits for catastrophes that you prevent.
So who is the better leader – the one on stage extinguishing fires and handling catastrophes or the one enabling the team to be successful by keeping an eye on trust, motivation, cross functionality, passing on responsibility, etc.?
I‘m trying hard to be the second – even if I cannot show my fire extinguishing skills then and people might say ‚What‘s all the fuss about – it was an easy project‘.
Most organizations I know do not respect risk management enough. Back when I was a manager inside the organization, I got the “problem” people and the “problem” projects. Why? Because I could manage them. Not because I was so “talented,” but because I used risk management. Now, I use all three definitions of value to describe what I do. See How to Describe All the Value When You Want to Influence on my other site. Those ideas might help you.