Send to KindleSelf Managed Work Groups
There’s a trend that seems to be gaining popularity in some business circles. That’s Self-Managed Work Groups, sometimes called leaderless teams. These terms seem to imply that leaders and leadership are bad, or at least unnecessary; that if left alone, teams will function just fine on their own.
I think that’s a dangerous assumption. Of course, a leader can be most effective when workers are highly motivated and work with minimum intervention. But, that doesn’t mean the leader isn’t necessary.
Assuming that when constant leadership input is unnecessary, leadership is also unnecessary, ignores many of the critical functions of leadership. In fact, telling people what to do is really a small part of the whole equation and good leaders would rather be doing other things.
The other problem with this concept of leaderless teams is a basic misunderstanding of human and group dynamics. Any time a group of people come together to accomplish a task, a leader will emerge. In fact, even if a formal leader is assigned, an informal leader may well become more powerful than the formal leader. If the organization insists that a group will not need leaders, the result will likely be a less effective group.
Another offshoot of this trend is rotating leaders. Jack is the leader this week, Jill is the leader next week, and John has the chair the week after that. I really can’t think of a quicker way to create a dysfunctional organization. This concept too misses some of the critical functions of leadership, like long-range thought and planning.
Some of you may point to Semco in Brazil as an example of Self Managed Work Groups and de-emphasis of leadership. Semco has been very successful using what many would consider a pretty radical structure. But if you look a little deeper you’ll find two factors that have a lot to do with their success.
First, they do have leadership. It may be a bit subdued, but it’s there. It was the strong leadership of Ricardo Semler that created the current Semco culture. And that’s the second factor; the company’s culture. That strong culture allows the type of leadership style that works for them. But, there is no lack of leadership.
As leaders we should strive to develop organizations where hands-on, explain things step-by-step leadership is not necessary. But that doesn’t mean leadership isn’t necessary.
