Turn the Ship Around — What I learnt!
While we are all in lockdown mode, I took the chance to read this book named — Turn the Ship Around. It talks about a different leadership style — Leader-Leader as against the standard or commonly known Leader-Follower style.
Leader-Leader approach demonstrates that leadership isn’t an unattainable quality that a select few are born with. Rather, this approach recognizes that we are all leaders, in some way or another. The difference between this approach and the leader-follower approach is how decisions are made. As we’ve learned in the leader-follower structure, all information is sent up the chain of command, and a decision is made only by the person at the top of this chain. Contrastingly, in a leader-leader system, decision-making power is evenly distributed throughout the chain of command. This allows individuals to act on newly arriving information without having to wait for it to ascend the chain.
You may ask why we need a different style of leadership and when you should adopt it. Simple answer — whenever the situation demands for it. What does that even mean! It simply means, when you see a situation that you have more granular information about rather than your manager/boss, you can always step up and try to make sure that both of you completely understand the actions which needs to be taken. Since you are the one who is going to perform the task, no one other than you can know the exact details of the execution. You should not be simply taking the task handed down by your manager, without understanding the repercussions. By doing this, you are an active participant in the decision making chain. This is the first and foremost step to being a leader.
The book starts with discussing some of the drawbacks of the commonly used leader-follower approach. We may see this at workplaces, where people are expecting certain instructions or targets to be given to them by their higher ups. There is often a lack of understanding and motivation of why we are doing the work we are instructed to do. In such situations, the person may do the exact task they have been assigned, but since they did not know the why behind it, it lead to failure or dissatisfaction. Here the system failed both the person and the situation. Most people get too complacent in their jobs and day to day activities, without feeling motivated enough to take on new challenges. This brings us to our new leadership model.
The leader-leader style is based on 3 pillars — Control, Competence and Clarity.
Control —Empowerment is key in helping followers turn into leaders. Delegating control to the lower level employees/associates helps them make better decisions about the tasks they do. It forces them to think about the situations holistically while making those decisions. This changes their routine activities into active participation, getting them thinking for the team as whole and not just passively taking orders. Don’t take control, give control.
Another important point mentioned is to have frequent and short conversations, rather than having long meetings. This helps in timely feedback and adds to the clarity of tasks saving hours of time. There should be a consistent language/protocol among everyone to communicate theirs needs when tasks are interdependent. The higher ups should trust their peers and reports and rely on the decisions made by them, given that they have the utmost clarity of their work. Reports (passive followers) can use phrases like “I intend to”, “I plan on”, “I will”, “We will”, etc which turns them into active leaders. Consecutively, this will give them authority and confidence to lead their crew. This is part of open decision making strategy.
Thinking out loud is another aspect of control in the leader-leader style. Absence of informal communication can create constant buzz and chaos. Instead, sharing information and making others aware of your next actions helps eliminate the element of surprise and builds trust. Everyone on the team should be able to surface their concerns freely. This is important for building up a rich collaborative environment among the team members.
Competence — This means being confident in your decisions. Taking deliberate actions when executing a task is very crucial. Rather than working on auto-pilot, if people think twice before taking up a new task and learn from their previous mistakes, it will help boost their technical competence. Looking for learning opportunities at every step of the task makes you even better for the job, than having a long dedicated one-time training at the beginning. The book mentions a beautiful quote where it urges you to become the machine of the factory after you are the product of the factory. It means, paying it forward from your learnings.
Clarity — This refers to visibility into the purpose of the organization — the high level goals the team is set to achieve. There are 7 mechanisms for achieving clarity -
- Striving for excellence instead of just avoiding errors
- Building trust and taking care of your people
- Using legacy for inspiration — this creates sense of purpose and urgency
- Using skills to guide people
- Using immediate recognition to reinforce desired behavior
- Begin with the end in the mind
- Encourage questioning attitude over following blind obedience
Each of these are self-clarifying about what needs to be achieved. Establishing personal goals for individuals on the team helps keep them motivated and focused on the long term journey together as a team. Taking care of people extends beyond their work life. This also is a foundation to build an extended pool of talent when the times are tight. Simple and clear guiding principles serve as decision making basis for everyone on the team. This enables everyone to think at their complete mental capacity actively.
In summary, I thought this Leader-Leader style of leadership is very relatable and adaptable especially in the technology industry where you can learn and help others be motivated to step up! I am proud to see many of these principles are already being followed by Women Who Code. All volunteers (from members to Directors) get to experience the process and reap all these benefits even without knowing that we are learning a lot through this. I would highly encourage everyone to read this book and try to implement and adopt this Leader-Leader style on a day to day basis.
