How to become a leader, not a boss
Legendary Truths
- THE BOSS doesn’t need to be a leader. He is the boss.
- Most of the managers are not leaders. It sounds bad, it’s an awful truth, but you need to accept it. (Even the “cleaning lady” can be considered a manager. She manages the mop.)
- If someone gave you the authority and said you are the lead, you most likely will only manage (in the beginning at least), not lead.
- If someone says from higher in the hierarchy that you are the lead, you will be the figure of power but do not forget: respect is hard to earn and easy to lose.
- Real leaders lead, give commands, give directions, and make people follow, by convincing them that’s the right way to go, making them happy and engaged, by making them think it’s their ideas. Do not forget: People don’t like being commanded (to be told what to do).
- If at least one person just obeys/executes “an order”, then his supervisor is not a leader.
- If a leader is too soft or tries to “kill” all the conflicts from the team before they appear, he is not a leader, he is just a weak puppet of the manager.
- A leader loves conflicts. From conflicts, the team and himself evolve. This doesn’t mean he will jump or even worse — create conflicts. A leader needs to know when and in which conflicts he needs to get involved. He needs to come prepared to the battlefield! — I recommend taking the time and read The Art Of War — by Sun Tzu
Advice on How to Become a Leader
- Mindset change
- Your team need to behave like a team, not like a group of lonely wolves being in the same pack with an alpha.
- Your team needs to be able to do anything together. From here it only depends on how much time you have, because you are 100% sure they will deliver.
- If something bad happens, it’s your fault. You should have anticipated.
- If something good happens, it’s the win of the team.
2. Involve everyone when making decisions. Forget about hierarchies. In a team, everyone has an equal voice, and it needs to be heard.
3. As a team you need to “cultivate” ideas and only guide. The team need to make their own decision. You are a part of the team and you can influence, but this is not all about politics but about hierarchy.
4. Help the team members to imagine solutions and become solution-oriented, not only find problems. Even when they have no solutions in their hands shift their mindsets to ask for help in getting the solutions.
5. Train your team so that for each problem, understand why it is a problem, consider the risks, consider different solutions, create a “battle” plan and create potential tasks and only after that think who will do what, based on each person’s role, or what they want to do. Only when working with passion someone will take ownership. Skills are not enough.
6. In stressful situations, the lead will need to tell people what they need to do. If you do not explain why he needs to do that, and you don’t guide him, he won’t do it with passion. If he does it only because of your command, if the quality is bad, it’s not his fault. It’s yours for several reasons already mentioned (point 6. from Legendary Truths and the 3rd bullet point from the Mindset change). Be careful not to “reset to default settings” and become again the boss.
People in case of a crisis need clarity, the removal of ambiguity, and maybe direct instructions and guidance. Get in the tranches!
It is very important how you give the instructions. Have you felt it? Here I used the word instructions. It sounds better than commands, right? At the end here it has the same meaning, but it sounds better.
Do not forget, in stressful situations, everyone is stressed out, not just you.
7. Read about leadership types. There are a lot of studies and everyone has their own opinion. For example, when I talk with people without absolutely no knowledge of the subject I like to refer to Glenn Parker’s research which in short sayin` there are 4 types of leadership styles: supportive leaders, teachers, motivators and role models. I recommend reading his book: The Positive Influence Leader: Helping People Become Their Best Self. If I talk with people who know a few things about leadership I like to talk based on S1-S4 types of leadership from Situational Leadership (more info here and here)
8. Active listening is one of the most important qualities of a leader. Shut up and listen. Shut up and read up the person in front of you. Body language matters too. You’ll learn way more things about your team and your team members if you stop talking and just listen.
How you say things matters
Politics all over again. At point 6. (from Advice on How to Become a Leader) we were talking about giving directions. Let’s be sure we are on the same page on this: give commands, give orders, give instructions, give directions, guide, ask. All mean the same thing, at least for me, at least now; but can you feel the difference between them? all have the same “clarity level”, but have a different level of how bad or harsh they sound.
I have some more examples in which I would ask you to feel the difference in how it sounds:
- Could we do this bug fix together since I feel you’re more experienced in this area than me? (maybe even Let’s fix this bug…)
- I would appreciate it if you could just fix this bug.
- I would like this bug fix to be done
- I’ll give you the opportunity to fix this bug
- Could/Can you fix this bug?
- Would you mind if you would fix this bug?
- I’m going to ask you to fix this bug.
- Will/Would you fix this bug / take this one for the team?
- I need you to take this bug and fix it.
- I want you to take this bug and fix it.
- You’d better do the bug fix.
A part of them may even sound sarcastic, bad, harsh, and so on, but the message is the same, you want to make the person in front of you do the bug fix.
Do the bug fix! This is clearly not a leadership attitude, this is not on the list above. Imperative makes sure you're sending clear intentions, but sound bossy from the start. This is ok when you want to send a clear message: You need to do this and I don't care about your opinion or feelings at this moment.
If you still want to use this way of sending the information, you can use “please”, if you want to make it a little bit better (“with a flower on the top”), but keep the same clarity: Please, do the bugfix! — for most of you might be the same, but is it really? Most likely the listener will still obey the command, but he will have the illusion of choice, and he will feel that he has preserved this honour.
Although it sounds better, be careful how many times you are using it. If it becomes a habit, you’ll be seen as a manipulative leader.
Conclusion
There is no magic formula to become a leader, but these are the first steps that you should follow and test. Each team is different. Each team member is different. You need to find out what makes everyone tick and find the common ground for everyone. If you can put everyone on the common ground and make them use their special abilities to finish the “quest”, then you are on the right path in your journey.
