Someone asked me today what my leadership style looked like. Such a simple question and yet I did not know what to say. Do I even have a style? Can it be called a style? What is more important to me? This reminded me of a conversation I had back in my time at Amazon. We were setting up a new team and struggled to identify what was the most important problem that the team needed to solve.
Many ideas were coming up but none seemed to stick and find roots of consensus. At Amazon, they often use Tenets as a way to guide hard decisions and build consensus starting from the high-level convictions as opposed to the very tactical details (like the type of problems a team needs solving).
I then thought that using Tenets to define my leadership style. What better tool to get an answer for such an important and difficult question? I am sharing this openly with the hope that you can also get inspired to think about your own style and the things you prioritise and build awareness of which type of leader you are (and want to be).
What is my leadership style?
Servant Leadership Over Chain of Command. I’d rather support and put myself aside to let my team advance than conserve a more hierarchical chain of command. In IT like in many other domains, leaders are asked to demonstrate the skills and values they want their teams to exhibit. Being a servant leader for me is a way to make sure I focus my ego out of individualism and constantly think about the well-being of the people in the team and the team itself. Servant leadership for me is the most effective form of help a team can get without feeling overwritten and out of control. It’s the most effective support to grow people knowing that someone is there ready to push them forward and carefully handle unexpected falls and mistakes.
People Over Processes. I don’t need processes till my team needs processes. It’s easy to replicate known processes and copy-paste solutions to control and regulate how the life of a team evolves. It’s much harder to know when to add and remove processes that have a positive effect on how people operate. I strive every day not to get married to processes and constantly listen to what my team does, their struggles and the help they ask for. Would a better process help? Bring it in. Maybe something else is better?
Empowering Over Directing. The bottom-up drive is the real engine of teams. Nobody likes being told what to do, especially when disagreeing. I prefer to put my team in a position where they are empowered to drive their outcomes and feel supported when taking big risks and in need of guidance. Top-down direction can be effective (shortening the time to decisions) but in the long run, seduces teams into thinking they can survive without accountability for their own actions.
Open Partnerships Over Dependencies. Working in complex matrix organisations is challenging on many fronts. Getting things done often requires multiple teams to align, agree and execute as efficiently as possible to deliver on the common goals. Having an open partnership means extending the concept of the team to your partners, inviting them in to have a look around your own team and making them feel welcome, included and an integral part of the critical decisions. Open partnerships are way more powerful than dependency models in which contracts dictate expectations that are often broken, unattainable and source of discussions and escalations. In an open partnership model, there is only one (extended) team that acts with empowerment and openness and people know each other good intentions by first-hand experience. As a leader, I make it my duty to establish as many open partnerships as I can and allow the team to be open.
I encourage transparency over secrecy. How many times have you felt betrayed because “you were not invited to the meeting” or “the decision has been taken without me”. In a team that celebrates transparency, we welcome information sharing and trust each member to act responsibly with that. People understand the need for “small circle” discussions and also make a point to share discussion outcomes and invite more people to comment and contribute asynchronously. Enforced secrecy in how team information is shared among the “need to know” people in my experience caused more damage than the advantages of controlled and small-circle decisions. Full transparency rules are more delicate to respect and require the active effort of everyone in the team holding information, but inspire a greater deal of unity as the whole team better understand dynamics and fosters trust which is the most difficult component a team needs to build and conserve.
I ask for Solutions before problems. It’s important for teams to feel they can expose problems when they arise and voice concerns and divergent opinions. Is not as useful as coupling problems with solutions. When a team is debating diverging opinions, encouraging solutions to be brought before problems ensure that every person is thinking not only about sharing problems openly, but also respects the need for a common resolution that can only come when solutions are at the core talks. I encourage everyone in my team to grow in independence by proposing solutions and using the team as a reviewing and unifying force to adapt solutions and seal what we should do together.
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