We couldn’t talk so we had to listen more to what each other couldn’t say.

“The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’ “ –Lao Tsu

The concept of being a leader is oftentimes misunderstood as self-defined or representatively-appointed leaders usually lack the understanding of what it actually means to lead. Being a leader in many cases isn’t about running meetings or commanding a group to collectively perform one’s own bidding. Leading is more about guiding a collection of people to perform by drawing from the strengths of the individuals and realizing that the concept of the group, rather than the person in charge, is what progresses the team.

The term “lead by example” is thrown around as much as any, but its fundamental idea is completely disrespected in many realms of today’s society. In order to gain the position as leader of a group, a person is often required to perform not the tasks which will be necessary to fully garner the most out of the individuals of the team, but rather have separate, less-useful traits that many people refer to as “qualities many great leaders possess.” These include money, charisma, toughness, fame, talent, a loud voice, intelligence, and other characteristics (some notable, some despicable). Not to say many of the better leaders do not possess certain of these traits, but the concept of leading does not require any. Anyone can lead. Society often doesn’t respect leaders who don’t possess particular traits; however, in an actual small group setting, societal norms give way to the collective agreements of the group. As long as the members of a group are willing to respond to a slight digression from their comfort zone or normally accepted ideals, the soft-spoken, “lead by example” approach is in most cases the best way to contribute to a group. Teams with a more sporadic approach to leadership tend to tolerate the stripping of hierarchal boundaries and allow for the greatest product from each member as well as a more collective understanding and acceptance of the overall goal.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” –Unknown

Everyone has a brain. Everyone has unique experiences that have molded him or her and guided him or her to the place in life in which they currently stand. Why would it make any sense to create an environment where people’s greatest assets are stripped and all that is asked (told) of them is to “do what I say”? Society doesn’t always allow for this idealistic approach to labor; however, in most small group settings, as long as people are willing to adapt to an open-minded approach to success, there is no need to define leaders. Different leaders of the same group should arise at different times based on the task at hand and the strengths, weaknesses, and past experiences of its members. Sometimes there is no need for a leader, as a task is completed through the winding together of different approaches and people playing off each other’s talents and ideas. This approach allows for complete ownership of the mission by each member and contributes to the overall group morale going forward. Also, the finished project most likely ends up as unique, creative, efficient, and complete as possible.

This is all great.

But.

It doesn’t seem to ever work out that way.

Small groups without definitive leaders are almost always taken over and “led” by the people whom have the most outgoing personalities and are the loudest talkers. It is almost impossible for a random group (or any group) to not have one or a few of these “type-A” personalities as well as a number of people who would consider themselves introverted or perhaps are considered eternal followers. No one deserves to always lead. No one should always follow. But this is hard. Engrained societal phrases such as “born leader” are counterintuitive and lazy approaches to making the most effective group. For a group to realize their full potential, it must be collectively taught to learn to work together with contributions in many forms from all reaches of the unit. The outgoing members of the group must be patient and allow for all forms of communication from each person. The more-introverted (as giving labels such as introvert and extrovert really does nothing more than clump or generalize people who are, in their own ways, unique) have the duty to work to make their voices heard. Be it through speaking-out or writing or acting-out, the success of the group depends on its ability to include and draw from each other. Different mediums of communication as well as different approaches to holding meetings, events, and projects greatly enhance the capability of the group to get the most of out each of its members. If a meeting is always held with the same guidelines or a project is always approached in the same methodical way, not only will the group potentially grow tired of working, but also inclusiveness will suffer.

The phrase “people learn in different ways” is often ironically thrown around by teachers and hired “leaders” in the same power point format or “talking at you” approach that they almost always use. Not to digress into a reformation of teaching styles, it just seems appropriate to expand on the phrase and perhaps use it to stimulate the workings of a group environment. How about “people learn, work, grow, participate, teach, think, and approach in different ways”? Why, then, are there so many formalities? “That’s the way its always been done.” Order is necessary, but total control isn’t. Creativity and innovation are almost completely impossible when a person or group is being told not just what to do, but how to do it. As difficult as it may seem to break from the idea of leader/followers, why not do it? It is, by the way, your group (as well as all the other members’). Instead of thinking guidelines, think efficiency. Instead of thinking lead, think include. It is fairly easy to know when you are a member of a group that chooses smoothness through control and efficiency through formalities. These groups will often have a few loud people working toward their own vision using the best of their abilities. Many members will be set-aside as followers and will either be not allowed to participate in any of the process, or perhaps just be told what to do. The trait of having an outgoing personality, which is completely arbitrary in relation to creativity, inventiveness, synergy, completeness or any other desired traits of a group, wins out. Only the loud people’s voices are heard. (Side note: even just using the term “voices are heard” to refer to how someone contributes to a group shows the acceptance of vocal prowess over other forms of communication.)

In groups where there are defined leaders and followers, and voice wins out, things do get done. If this wasn’t the case, either nothing would happen or there would be a drastically different style of grouping. However, just because something produces results doesn’t mean they are even close to the desired or most efficient outcome. If history has taught anything it is that change happens and that the accepted thinking of a certain time period is triumphed by invention, discovery, and new thoughts. Transportation is probably the easiest example in that most likely people in every time period have thought something to the effect of “Wow! Travel by X is such an efficient means of travel! There is no way we will ever have anything better.” By now, many people understand the idea that breaking free from societal norms or the common misconception that today’s way of doing things is the best possible way isn’t taboo, but rather a necessary right at least at the thought experiment level.

Well what if…

Groups generally acted in the way proposed. It is hard to imagine a world in which leaders were not only efficient, but humble.

“Speak softly, but carry a big stick.” –Theodore Roosevelt

In order to lead it is necessary to completely remove oneself from the idea that one’s leadership will result in any personal gain. To be the most efficient leader one must bring to the table all he or she has to give and leave it there. Humility or anonymity is paramount to a leader because it allows one’s self to detach from the idea of self-progression in favor of the success of the group. Not to say a leader cannot gain from one’s leadership, but without 100% devotion to the group, the idea of becoming a leader at least partially fails to live up to its potential. Even being the leader of a group for a certain time period (it could be for a task, a few tasks, or an extended period of time), a person needs to realize that their leadership is not means for anything but the progression of the group.

Be humble.

Yesterday I completed the portion of our training called “Hands of Peace.” One part of the program (probably a twenty minute segment out of eight hours) was called something like “Quiet Construction.” The rest of the training was effective and I had a good time as well as learned a great deal. However the “Quiet Construction” part taught me the most and made me realize the previous concepts. I am not sure if the project was designed to learn these particular lessons or ponder the idea of leadership dynamics in a group or if it even agreed with what I thought I got from it. But that’s how it went.

“Quiet Construction” was an activity where we broke into five-person groups and were given a box with construction materials in it. Before opening the box, we were required to state what we were going to make out of whatever surprise we found inside. No shaking the box. No peeking. Just, “what will you make?” We decided to make a robot since it would probably be enough of a versatile project that we could adapt if the pieces were of any variety. After we were given time to think of our project we were told there would be no more talking until our project was finished.

We began.

As construction of the project progressed, a very interesting dynamic began to occur. No one took over the group. Even though its composition was a mixture of people spanning the type-A to introverted personality scale, the inability to speak seemed to level the playing field in terms of control. Everyone had their own ideas and everyone was listening to each other through body language and gesturing. I’ve always heard that blind people tend to have amazingly sharp senses of sound, feel, and smell. This exercise seemed like an exact parallel in that the mute group was forced to use their other forms of communication. We were given a ten-minute time limit and at the six-minute point we already had an amazingly original robot using the creativity of all members of the group. As we worked, team members played off each other’s ideas and there was never a sense of one person’s vision triumphing the group. Obviously there was no control or sample-size to make the findings of the experiment in anyways scientific or representative, but there was just a feeling in the group that the task wasn’t being guided, but rather collaborated. The societal hierarchies didn’t suppress anyone’s ideas. Everyone’s voice was heard. Or as one girl put it, “We couldn’t talk so we had to listen more to what each other couldn’t say.”

Although it wasn’t much more than a twenty-minute standard team-building exercise this activity made me completely rethink the idea of leadership. I suppose leadership should rather be considered an action than a position. In the perfect setting there is no such thing as a “natural born leader” or maybe even leaders at all. Either everyone has the potential to lead or there are no definitive leaders (however you choose to look at it). But defining someone as the leader of a group is so counter to the way small groups should operate if efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation are goals of the group. It is hard to imagine a world in which the societal norms were geared to actual involvement of all voices (no matter how faint) or that had less people who were considered “voices of the people” and more people’s actual voices. But for now, I believe that when working in small groups, the approach of not defining leaders and having people lead through example and based on strengths and weaknesses is clearly a doable task. Obviously the means of going about this is not quite clear (in that you don’t want to just shut down the vocal aspect of a group completely), but perhaps thinking of new ways to actually get everyone involved in all aspects of the process is a noble approach. Finding a way of training a group to remain open-minded and focused and really learn about how each member can contribute to the overall mission is also a good start. A group that performs as well as its most vocal members perform alone is not a team at all, but rather just a collection of people doing the bidding of an individual. A group in which the members can play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses and continually tear down boundaries and evolve throughout every aspect of the process can be considered a team and will, in the end, build a better product. If I had any sort of respect for sports movies, I would use this space to draw some sort of parallel to the underlying theme of all of them, which is: a group of misfits can put together a team in a few days that can beat the best teams in the world. But I’d rather just leave talking about how off base that idea is for another day. Leadership should be earned, not won, and it should be a redistributed, evolving aspect of any small group environment that desires the most creative, finished product imaginable.

“Example is leadership.” –Albert Schweitzer