"It is important to have an awareness of your own leadership style and to know when and how to adapt that style based on context. It is for this reason reflection is considered a useful leadership and development strategy."
Arise: a take on leadership!
When we think about leadership, we usually picture someone who has ultimate authority or holds complete control and decision-making power over a group or organisation. This notion of leadership can be called “autocratic leadership." If this is our ideal of leadership, we probably won't think of anyone without a formal leadership job title as a leader or as someone who can drive change of any form on their team or organisation. I believe this is a misguided notion, especially if you work in software development.
In this article, I will draw on my experience and insights gained from leadership literature to demonstrate that to lead, or drive change, you do not necessarily need to have a formal leadership title. I will also show how you can use a transformational leadership style, informed by principles of authentic leadership, to lead as an individual contributor.
The agent: an individual contributor!
Individual contributor: an employee responsible for performing specific tasks or functions within a team or organisation but who does not have authority to manage other employees. Even so, they lead initiatives and are accountable for the work in their functional area.
In line with Agile ways of working, many software development teams today are often multi-disciplinary. They usually consist of individual team members responsible for distinct functional areas of development for the products they work on. For example, if you are someone responsible for testing on their team, you possess what some in the leadership paradigm refers to as “expert power” and to some degree “referent power” (see Yukl and Gardner, Leadership in Organizations (2019), pp. 170-171). This means that your teammates will often trust in your ability to lead the testing activities on their team.
Therefore, as a test expert, you can be referred to as an “individual contributor” on their team. And it is through this lens that I wish to show how you can promote change without having a formal title.
The scenario: a call for change!
Throughout my career in software development, I have helped teams build quality products. In the process I've gained extensive experience in software testing and quality delivery in general.
Notwithstanding, every now and then, when I join a new team, I notice that some of the existing processes are not optimal. Sometimes, there is a lack of visibility into the work testers do on the team. And that means that testers' work may not always be appreciated. Other times, team members do not communicate well during the development and release cycles. Or team processes and useful tools aren't documented. All of this often leads to confusion on what needs to be done, by whom, and at what time. It is especially hard if you're new to such a team.
Faced with these challenges, my default reaction, as is probably the case for many of you, is to help improve things. My usual starting point is to identify the problems, visualise them to others, then propose ideas for improvement, drawing on my experiences. These improvements could include introducing a test management or project management tool, or facilitating better usage of such tools. If you have a tool with the capability for shared documentation, it can help facilitate communication and collaboration among team members. It can also serve as a source of truth for requirements, test coverage, tracking development and release cycles, and so on.
The case: a call to leadership!
Sometimes my attempts to drive change have been met with resistance. A frequent cause of the resistance is that some of the team members have been on the team or in the organisation for many years. So a change from the status quo may not be an attractive proposition to them. Moreover, such proposals on the surface may impose a steep learning curve. Therefore, initial reactions can be negative.
For “titled” or "autocratic" leaders, there is perhaps an easy fix to this problem. All they have to do is decide on what needs to happen, without necessarily consulting others. Then, they expect (and generally get) strict obedience from the team. But, if you are a leader without a formal title, such as a respected independent contributor, your strategy has to be a little more complex.
Faced with a situation like that, you might ask:
- How do you get the team to see the value in your proposal?
- Specifically, how do you persuade the team to give your proposal a try, whilst ensuring the team's goals are effectively achieved without major disruption to existing processes?
These are core leadership questions. And in responding to them I will demonstrate an approach to leadership that can be valuable for those in any kind of leadership role, formal or informal.
The design: leadership defined!
Leadership: “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Yukl and Gardner, 2019).
If we use this definition, to demonstrate leadership in the case described above, you need to “influence” the team to understand the vision and agree as a group on how to achieve it. However, the influencing process is determined not only by the type of power a leader possesses, but also by their influencing behaviour.
There are three general types of influence tactics: impression management, political, and proactive tactics. In this regard, I refer mainly to proactive tactics, based on their relevance to this context. For this reason, understanding your own traits is vital. This helps in identifying the influencing behaviour that comes naturally for us to use in leadership situations. If we take the BIG Five Personality model as an example, studies have shown that “four of the Big Five traits have non-trivial correlations with leadership emergence and effectiveness.” These four traits are: extroversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.
It is not very important where you are on the personality spectrum. The key is in understanding your core attributes, how they shape your response to situations, and where you may need to develop to further increase your effectiveness. By understanding your traits, you will be better at applying appropriate leadership styles with respect to your own attributes.
For an independent contributor, a leadership style that can be helpful in navigating the conundrum of leading without a managerial job title is the transformational leadership style, which I now turn to.
The framework: the transformational leadership model!
Transformational leadership is an approach where the agent or leader relies on their individual attributes to motivate and encourage their team to achieve strategic and organisational goals.
In a nutshell, transformational leadership is concerned with leading and driving change by improving the performance of individual team members, raising morale, self-confidence, and aligning the team to an overall vision, or clear purpose. There are four key factors to this leadership model, which are:
1. Idealised influence
Idealised influence is the emotional component of leadership where leaders act as strong role models for followers, such as your team members.
2. Inspirational motivation
Inspirational motivation is the component of leadership where the leader communicates high expectations to followers, inspiring and motivating them to become committed to and be part of the common goal or vision in a team or organisation.
3. Intellectual stimulation
Intellectual stimulation is the component of leadership where the leader stimulates followers to be creative and innovative, and to challenge their own beliefs and values as well as those of the leader, team, or organisation.
4. Individualised consideration
Individualised consideration is the component of leadership where the leader provides a supportive climate in which they listen carefully to the individual needs of their team members.
Anyone who exemplifies these "four I's" factors of transformational leadership will usually be able to influence and facilitate the agenda of a group or a team, regardless of their title or role. Northouse (2021: p.194) argues that the transformational leadership style produces great effect, leading to outcomes that go way beyond what is expected, especially when driving change.
Time for a change: transformational leadership in practice!
When I have found myself in “the situation” I described earlier, I have often used the transformational leadership approach. This is how I've implemented the model in general terms.
Appeals to team members' reason
In line with the first part of the leadership definition quoted above, my first step is usually to persuade the team that my proposal is desirable, using reasoned arguments based on my knowledge and experience. This is a type of "proactive influence" tactic referred to as "rational persuasion", which involves “the use of logical arguments and factual evidence that a proposal is desirable because it is important for the organisation or team and is feasible to do” (Yukl and Gardner, 2019, p.182).
This behavioural tactic supports the transformational leadership approach. It helps to create a better understanding of proposals and to build buy-in from team members.
Calling others to action and providing support
No matter how sound your arguments for change may be, influencing the team to agree to a proposal is only one half of the leadership process. It is not enough for people to agree to a proposal. They have to implement it, too. You may face obstacles like a lack of skill on the team to implement the agreed-upon changes. This is where the second part of the leadership process becomes crucial: the facilitation of the desired actions.
So my next step is to help the team improve and develop the skills needed for implementation. For example, you could set up a series of knowledge-sharing sessions to demonstrate and coach the team on how to work within the new system. I often provide the team with a template and examples to refer to when needed. This usually helps in enhancing team members' confidence in their ability to execute the tasks ahead of them.
A summary of my approach to transformational leadership
When I'm confronted with the need to lead without a formal title, I will:
- Influence: by leading by example.
- Inspire: by empowering team members to believe in their abilities.
- Stimulate: by getting the team to challenge their beliefs and assumptions.
- Individually consider every team member's needs: by creating an atmosphere where everyone can share their concerns.
In a nutshell, the transformational leadership approach often helps in creating an environment where change proposals are welcomed by everyone.
Overall, a transformational leadership approach works best when the leader demonstrates a balance of empathy, strategic thinking, and a dedication to fostering a cohesive and high-performing team. You should approach leadership situations with genuine and real character. In recent leadership studies, this type of leadership style is now commonly referred to as authentic leadership. But what is authentic leadership? And why does it matter?
The operator: an authentic leader!
Authentic leadership: a “pattern of leader behaviour that develops from, and is grounded in, the leader's positive psychological qualities and strong ethics.” - Walumbwa et. al. (2008)
Earlier, I said that understanding your own individual traits and attributes is valuable in understanding your leadership style. While these traits don't determine your leadership effectiveness, understanding them can shed light on how effective a leader you can be.
Three important aspects of authentic leadership contribute to an effective transformational leadership process. They are:
- The intrapersonal perspective: this relates to your self-awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses and how you interact with others.
- The developmental perspective: this relates to the view that authentic leadership ability is something that can be nurtured over time, rather than it being a fixed trait.
- The interpersonal process: this implies the relational aspect of leadership where authenticity is derived not from the leader's perspective alone, but from the interactions between the leader and the followers ( team members).
To effectively respond to leadership situations as an individual contributor, it is crucial to embody these different aspects of authentic leadership. For example:
- Cultivating self-awareness can help ensure that you optimise your attributes when responding to leadership situations. Reflection is a good way to build your self-awareness.
- A commitment to personal development can help ensure that you are constantly developing and keeping up with the demands of your "expert" position. An engagement in lifelong learning and staying curious is one way of doing this.
- Seeking feedback from colleagues can help you validate their perception of your leadership style. Moreover, the feedback response can also help illuminate the team's reaction to ideas for change that you have suggested in the past, which can help inform how you go about introducing new ideas. An acknowledgement of your authenticity by colleagues can help you validate that your team members trust in your ability to lead. This would usually mean they will be more receptive to suggestions when you introduce them.
It is not enough to reflect and develop your leadership based only on your own self-assessment. Seeking feedback from colleagues to evaluate your leadership and teamwork practices is also crucial. It will help you create a quality control framework that contributes to your leadership development.
The quality control: a commitment to feedback, reflection, and continuous improvement
The analysis so far supports the notion that leadership is less of a static position and more of a set of actions. Leadership actions cannot be thought of as something always directed towards other people. They also include actions taken towards yourself. No one leads all the time. When you are not leading others, you may be following them and, at the same time, following your own path (self-leadership). This makes reflection and continuous improvement an important leadership skill.
When I want to reflect on my own status and actions, I use an adapted version of Driscoll's reflective model:
Figure 1: Driscoll (2007) reflective model
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What? - what happened?
- Identify a specific situation or area of your leadership you wish to evaluate.
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So What? - what is your interpretation? And interpretation of others?
- Note your interpretation of the situation, and compare it to the interpretations of others, such as team members.
- On this, you can use a 360-degree feedback approach to collect feedback from colleagues focusing on the identified area.
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Now What? - what is the outcome?
- What have you learned from the situation?
- What could you have done differently?
- What does this mean for your future development?
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Action
- Create a plan using, for example, a SMART goal setting framework, on how to improve and further develop based on your evaluation.
- Implement your plan and continuously review your implementation.
- Rewind the process.
As someone in any kind of leadership position, following these steps will serve as a valuable exercise to help improve your influencing and facilitation skills. These skills are necessary not just for effective leadership, but for promoting change under any circumstances or context.
Curtain call: to lead without a title!
I have shown how aspects of transformational leadership and authentic leadership can be used to handle leadership situations as an individual contributor. However, it is worth noting that some other leadership approaches can also be beneficial.
For example, given the interactive nature of relationships in most software development teams, you can benefit from learning about the “leader-member exchange” approach. Likewise, a “servant leadership” approach can also be beneficial, where appropriate.
To be effective and to continue to develop as a leader, especially as one without a management job title, it is important to have an awareness of your own leadership style and to know when and how to adapt that style based on context. It is for this reason that reflection is considered a useful leadership and development strategy. Reflection helps you to develop a rationale for practice, take informed actions, move on, and improve.
Through continuous review and adaptation, you can keep growing as a leader.
For more information
- Avolio, B., & Bass, B. (1991), The full range of leadership development. Binghamton, NY: Center for Leadership Studies.
- Boies, K. and Howell, J. M. (2006), "Leader–member exchange in teams: An examination of the interaction between relationship differentiation and mean LMX in explaining team-level outcomes", The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 17, Issue 3, pp. 246-257.
- Bovend-Eerdt, T.J., Botell, R.E. and Wade, D.T. (2009), "Writing smart rehabilitation goals and achieving goal attainment scaling: A practical guide", Clinical Rehabilitation, 23(4), pp. 352–361. doi:10.1177/0269215508101741.
- Driscoll, J.J. (2007), Practising Clinical Supervision: A Reflective Approach for Healthcare Professionals (2nd edition). London: Bailliere Tindall. Pp 27-‐50.
- Eagly, Alice. (2005), "Achieving Relational Authenticity in Leadership: Does Gender Matter?", The Leadership Quarterly. 16. 459-474. 10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.03.007.
- Goleman, D. and Boyatzis, R. (2013), Primal leadership, with a new preface by the authors: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Harvard Business School Press.
- Greenleaf, R. K. (2024), “What is Servant Leadership?”, Greenleaf.org. Available online at: https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/ (Accessed: September 17, 2024).
- Judge, T.A. et al. (2002), "Personality and leadership: A qualitative and Quantitative Review", Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), pp. 765–780. doi:10.1037//0021-9010.87.4.765.
- Northouse, P. G. (2021), Leadership: Theory and Practice. 9th ed. Edited by Peter G. Northouse. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
- Walumbwa, F.O. et al. (2008), "Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure", Journal of Management, 34(1), pp. 89–126. doi:10.1177/0149206307308913.
- Zenger, J. and Folkman, J. (2020), “What makes a 360-degree review successful?”, Harvard Business Review, 23 December. Available at: https://hbr.org/2020/12/what-makes-a-360-degree-review-successful (Accessed: September 17, 2024).
- Yukl, G., & Gardner, W. L. (2019), Leadership in Organizations, Global Edition (9th ed.). Pearson Education Limited.
- Forget about job titles! Testing leadership for all, Jesper Ottosen
- Adaptive or authentic leadership?, Jeanine Mechelinck
- Receiving feedback with resilience, Crystal Onyeari Mbanefo
