Employing Differences, Episode 24: Who leads if we have no leaders?

Karen: 0:02

Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Paul: 0:15

I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:17

And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:19

Each episode, we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is"Who leads if we have no leaders?"

Karen: 0:30

So I think where we're going with this one– or at least our starting point here– is thinking about this space where teams are moving sort of out of the traditional boss-driven, there's a director, there's a president, there's that person who has that role of leader and says,"We want to be in a more collaborative space." We're adopting sociocracy, we're working with agile, we're starting with consensus, something like that. We're saying we're going to be much more equal in our participation equal in our influence, equal in how we show up, and so we're not going to have that dominating leader role anymore. And yet there were skills and tasks and roles and needs that came as part of that package. So if we've said we're not going to have that dominant role, how do we still get the sort of visioning, motivating, connecting, directing, agenda-setting– whatever were the pieces that were attached to that leadership role? How do we get those tasks done if we don't have that person in that role anymore?

Paul: 1:42

Early in my agile journey, we talked about a lot in the work that we were doing about sort of traditional project management and contrasting that with what we were doing in the situation we were in. And one of the things we said really early on is the idea that there's nothing that agile does that traditional project management doesn't do. It just distributes those responsibilities differently. And so when you think about it in sort of like if you're in, if you're using Scrum and you're thinking about what is the role that the product owner plays? And what's the role of the ScrumMaster plays? What's the role the development team plays? You can take all of the things that need to be done by each of those roles and map them back on to very traditional PMI project management, sorts of things, and go,"Oh, all of these things happen, we're just moving them around." And I think there's a very similar thing that happens where there are still the same needs that exist within a team, within an organization. Those needs need to be fulfilled, and so we need someone to do them. The question is just how are we going to distribute those differently, in a way that in some ways is more functional, in a way that make sure that those roles are inhabited a little more skillfully. For me the question about"Who leads if we have no leaders?" the easy answer is"well, everyone." But what it really means is figuring out who needs to do what, who does it make the most sense to have do these various things that traditionally we had assigned to one person.

Karen: 3:27

Yeah. And I think it is that– you know here's our curiosity moment of the session– that to pause and think about, and just get curious about whose talents line up, but also where are our biases? What have we traditionally associated with the boss? Because a lot of those things– the boss did a thing that was valuable. And so I think a lot in terms of how the approach is as opposed to what the tasks are. If the approach isn't that"this sort of skill is more highly valued than that sort of skill" or that"that person has that role so they get to dominate, dictate that sort of thing." But the approach is more invitational, more contracted, more agreed. It's actually totally fine in a team to have somebody whose job it is to come in in the morning, write up the schedule or the job assignment, and even make job assignments–"You're going to do this and you're going to do this, and you're going to do this."– if that's what makes that team work well, and it's been contracted. I mean, it can even seem very directive. If it's because we've identified"That's a person who really is good at looking at here's the tasks they know us all really well; what we need from that, and what's going to make our team work well is for that person to tell us all what to do." That's totally legit in a non-hierarchical setting. That's not hierarchy unless that person is not getting any feedback or it hasn't been the agreement of the team that that's what makes the team work well.

Paul: 5:08

On a very personal level in These Inside Times, one of the things in the team of two that I happen to be part of– that lives in my house– we're working a lot with," How does food get made?" How do we make sure we get fed? The division that we've really fallen into is that Gwen will sort of figure out–or she has a strong input into– sort of planning and doing some research, figuring out given that what the weather is going to be like, these are the things that it might be nice to eat. Because it's going to be really hot this weekend, maybe we don't want to use the oven. I tend to fall into the"Great, we're going to make the grocery list together, I'm going to go to the grocery store, I'm going to buy the groceries." Every evening I usually cook dinner and things like that. That is the sort of thing we've had to have several conversations about where she feels guilty about like me what to do. And I am in this place of what's really wonderful is that I don't have to think about this. I just know tonight I'm going to make cold pork noodles. I've got a plan. I've been thinking all day about stuff that I've been doing at work. I don't want to have to also think and design and sort of do these things. And so by sort of uncoupling our traditional judgments about like,"Oh, you're doing this thing, therefore that means there's a hierarchy," and sort of pulling those things apart– being able to have that sort of conscious conversation about how I really appreciate not having to do the planning. And we have to have that continual renegotiation about,"Are you really sure you're okay with this? I feel like I might be dominating this." And I'm like,"No, please keep doing this. This is so helpful to me." So that's really, I think where one of those unconscious assumptions we have about the fact that this person does this task means this thing– this value is associated with that. I think that's one of the places that we can get stuck when we start trying to move those things around and move them off of just a single person doing them.

Karen: 7:22

And I think that it's going to be particularly challenging– I think it is particularly challenging at this moment and it's going to be for a while. Probably our generation– those of us who came into adulthood from these very hierarchical experiences– we learned how to function in these very hierarchical structures and then we're living through the transition out. Well, all of our sorts of inner voices are used to looking for hierarchy. And although we sort of flipped it from"It's the good thing, and you have to do what the boss says," to"It's the thing to be avoided and we don't want to go there," we're still carrying the baggage of what we believe about those roles. We not only are carrying it– like Gwen is still carrying her guilt around"I can't be the boss"– but also there's plenty of potential for someone to get reactive because it feels like you're trying to be the boss of me. It could have gone either way. And so I think we're gonna have to be particularly vigilant– probably through our whole generation– about making sure that we're transparent, making sure that we're checking, in noticing when we're doing a new thing and we like the way we're doing it but it's a violation of the old rules and just checking in with each other about that. And as I say that, I can wish for the next generation to not have to be checking in like that, for them to arrive in a place where of course the person who makes the job assignments first thing in the morning is not any more important or valuable or influential even than anybody else. That's just cause they're good at that thing. And you don't jump to those judgment assumptions.

Paul: 9:07

I think there is a piece of being able to recognize what are the things that are useful to the group to have done and then who does it make sense to have do based on their interests, their skill. Being mindful about that and sort of having conversations– and I've worked with groups about this– where we sort of recognize, okay, these are the various things that just need to happen, the group needs these things. Some of the times those things are things like we need to be able to celebrate when we have wins. Who is going to make sure that the celebration happens? Recognizing what are both the executive but also emotional needs of a group, and then having a deliberate conversation about who's going to make sure that each of those gets picked up. Because it's very easy when you start to try to devolve responsibilities from a single leader, it's very easy for certain things to get dropped that are important but may not be all that valued or maybe people are not all that interested in. It's very easy for us to just not notice that there are certain things that are not happening. So I try to do a lot of work with groups about recognizing what are the things that need to be done, what are the needs that the group has– and I recognize those are slightly different things– and how do we make sure that those needs get met? Who is– even if this wouldn't be something in another group that I would pick up, but I recognize in the current situation I'm the right person to do that, then I will. I can stretch into that. Those are conversations that I think if we want to lead without leaders, we have to get good at recognizing what are the tasks of leadership and how can those get distributed in this particular group.

Karen: 11:07

Yeah. And I would add at this particular time for this particular task, cause I can certainly think of times– I'm remembering a time that I had a project, I worked in elementary schools and so I would go and I had like two hours to set up. I got there one day and the teacher I was working with said,"Can you start an hour earlier?" And I was like,"Oh, you're funny." I've got all this stuff to set up an hour earlier. And I thought about it. I said,"Qell, I am willing to try. Do you have some kids? And what I need– I don't need the kids that are the smartest or the most skilled– I need the kids that are really good direction followers." Because in that moment, efficiency was the absolute key, and I literally just had them– I said,"You just need to line up in a line and follow me around and as soon as I can think of something that you could do for me, I'm going to hand it to whoever's first in line and you're going to do that thing." And this is what they did. Of course that was children in school and I was the adult so the hierarchy was absolutely the name of the game, but I could imagine that being exactly– in fact, my kids' dad and I did it around their birthday parties. I was the one who knew what to be done. He was around until I thought of a thing. And if it was a two-second thing– like that was the thing that got the job done. It wasn't about who was better. It was about in this moment, efficiency is the thing. So we're gonna put some what I would call light hierarchy or temporary hierarchy and very consensual hierarchy and temporarily in this place. And then we would talk about it afterwards and say,"How'd that work? How does that go? And are we okay with it? And are there any feelings to get worked out?" But I do think that piece about in this time for this project in this group, what are the needs and how do we get them done? And so who leads if we have no leaders, is whoever it makes sense to do the leadership tasks that are needed for this group at this time, for this time.

Speaker 4: 13:03

Absolutely. Well, I think that sounds like it's going to do it for us for today. So until next time I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 13:12

And I'm Karen Gimnig and this has been Employing Differences.