How to Lead When You’re Not the Boss
Every time I’m joining a new team, I ask myself the question “what does this group need from me?” The answer is always different.
For most of the last 15 years, I’ve been operating in leadership roles where I was not the direct supervisor of anyone on my team. In business, we call these “matrixed teams.” They’re a common way of running development projects and strategy efforts. In my activist role, it’s just called “life.”
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen a team spin apart because the person in the lead role didn’t distinguish it from being “the boss” of the team. Resentment and resistance build quickly and come to a head. Productivity slams to a halt in favor of jockeying for status. The organization suffers.
In Cause Organizations especially, you’re virtually NEVER the boss. Even if you are, you can’t afford to alienate your volunteers by being heavy-handed. You have all the accountability and none of the authority. So how do you get the job done?
Five Principles for Matrixed Leaders
Remember the definition of leadership
My favorite operational definition of leadership is: the art of influencing people to accomplish the mission. I reflect on it often to remind myself of the three core competencies I need to keep in focus.
It’s an art. Meaning, changing, evolving, growing all the time. I can’t apply a cookie cutter set of arbitrary rules and templates to every group and team. I have to be open to adaptation. For me, every time I’m joining a new team, I ask myself the question “what does this group need from me?” The answer is always different.
Influencing vs ordering. The Situational Leadership II model outlines four different techniques, depending on the development level of your team member: Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating. “Directing” is only used for the newest, most entry-level members of your team. If you come in at a zero baseline, you’re grateful to be told precisely what to do and how to do it so you don’t mess anything up. Anyone more developed or skilled than that, not so much.
I take time to consider where my team members are in the model and adjust the way I relate to them accordingly.
Anchor to your mission, vision, and values
I discuss this in more detail in “Three things you can do to install a leadership culture right now” so I won’t rehash here. Make yourself the servant to, advocate of, and voice of the mission, vision, and values of your organization. It lends weight and credibility to your actions and (for the most part) removes the need for you to convince people of the “rightness” of the direction you set.
In addition, if your organization is governed by Bylaws, then you need to know them inside and out. And make sure your team does too.
Know your people
If you don’t understand the level of development, skills, experience, motivations, and operating styles of your team members, you’re going have a very hard time influencing them. I’ve always tried to adhere to this principle. But in recent years, I’ve added some new tools I highly recommend. Schedule a workshop with your team to go through a combination of these that suits your needs.
Strengths Finder Profiles (requires purchase, but worth it), Myers Briggs Profiles, Love Language Profiles, Professional Behavior Profile
Remember, the purpose of these tools is to generate understanding, not to keep score.
Reframe your role
You maximize your people by giving them the training, equipment, empowerment, and clarity of purpose they need to charge ahead.
It bears repeating. In a Cause Organization, people are everything. You may not even have the authority to hire and fire members of your team. You can’t apply the traditional (and flawed) model of employer/employee.
As a matrixed leader, you’re not the supervisor. Your job is to maximize the contributions of your team in service to the mission. You maximize your people by giving them the training, equipment, empowerment, and clarity of purpose they need to charge ahead. This can be a really uncomfortable switch for people who are used conceptualizing their leadership role as controlling, constraining, and directing. You may need to go so far as writing this on the cover of your notepad as a daily reminder until it feels natural.
Remember the one indispensable rule
Again, I’ve written about this before, so I won’t rehash. But if you adopt the mindset of “everything is your fault” and use that to ask “what can I do differently?” you’re on your way to influencing, rather than ordering.
Using these five techniques, you can dramatically improve the leadership culture and group dynamic in your Cause Organization. Employed consistently, they will reduce conflict, turnover, and increase the productivity of your group.