The Ebb and Flow of Leadership
Thoughts on leadership and followership
How many times have you sat down and thought about leadership? If you were to reflect upon it, I’d hazard a guess you, like me, have an idea of leadership, what it is and how to apply it to your day job.
I have realised some important things in recent months around leadership in general. I would like to go one step further and explore how leadership theory can be applied to a modern day development team.
Joseph Rost, Professor of Leadership at the University of San Diago and author of Leadership in the 21st Centrury, defines leadership as “an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes”.
Leadership is a balance of power and your manager has probably got some form of power over you
In ther words, everyone is working towards a common objective and they want to make some form of change. Rost goes on to break this down further in his book, which provides fascinating insights into leadership. There were several lessons I learned from studying this text and simialr literature.
The Appointed Leader
There is a notion that leaders are appointed; perhaps you see your manager as a leader. Leadership is a balance of power and your manager has probably got some form of power over you (e.g. the power to fire you). Anyone can be appointed as a leader but they may or not live up to that title.
Rost describes a leadership relationship having both people who follow and people who lead. Interestingly, he explores the ebb and flow of a group where one individual may be leading in one instance or situation and following in another.
The Ebb and Flow
This ebb and flow is important to understand. How many times have you felt or seen people challenged as a "leader"? Perhaps someone in your team has taken the batton and the manager has felt undermined or threatened in some way (consciously or subconsciously, publicly or privately). In my experience in software ,people just want to get the job done and done well and, as a manager, encouraging and embracing this ebb and flow makes getting things done easier.
Take a look at your team, is there an ebb and flow? If there is I would wager it is a happy team who are bought into common aims, and want change to happen.
You are always an appointed follower too.
In my opinion there are not many roles and positions within an organisation where you don’t have to answer to somebody. Even the CEO has investors or a prime minister has voters to answer to. By virtue of this, we are all followers. I often reflect on this and look for ways to contribute and lead - even I groups where I am the most junior.
Agile and the ebb and flow of leadership
Within your organisation, be aware of the groups to which you belong. You will have varying degrees of power bestowed upon you, from total control over a team to no official control. However, as techies, we hold the knowledge of the complex and how to solve the most challenging problems. We can use this knowledge to be great leaders but also great followers.
I’m a great believer in agile methodologies as the current best approach to delivering great software solutions. Agile has the attributes of the ebb and flow of leadership built right into it, when done right. The servant leader, the common aims and the notion of a Scrum team solving problems together all go towards this.
Takeaways for reflection
Leadership is a vast subject which even the most advanced academics on earth have only scratched the surface. Here are some questions I have considered to reflect on my own leadership which have helped me reflect and become a better manager and leader.
- What is leadership to you?
- Consider your team, when have individuals been a leader and you have become a follower?
- When have you been a leader and someone more senior been a follower?
