I think a lot about leadership and how to motivate people, and I also often experiment with different approaches. It seems to me that the most important leadership skill, by far, is the ability to motivate and inspire others. As a leader, you’re just one person. One person, on their own, can’t get very much done. It takes a team of people to achieve anything at scale.
But the big problem for a leader is how to get a team of people to do stuff. I’m sure we have all heard or lived through horror stories of the despotic leader who tries to force things to be a certain way. In the process of trying to make a bunch of people do a bunch of things in a particular way, the motivation and inspiration of those people get thrown to the wayside, and what is left is a begrudging slog to a meaningless finish line. This kind of “leadership” leads ultimately to team-member attrition, even if only emotionally; many people are dead on the job. The paradox of leadership is that great things only get achieved when the leader gets out of the way.
Recently, while using a new software feature at work, I noticed how pleasant and effortless it was. I decided to write a note of appreciation on the Slack channel for the team that developed the software. The engineer who did the work responded with, “This just made my day, thank you.” His effort and care was being recognized and appreciated. This is the kind of thing that turbo-charges productivity and creativity. I was able to have this positive effect on another employee without even being his manager or technical lead; I’m just another individual contributor. This is what informal leadership look like.
Another example comes to mind: I read and try to digest the daily updates from the other people on my team and I want them to know that I have read about what they have done and that I appreciate it. These small snippets of text summarize a day’s worth of effort that brings value to me as a shareholder and as a team member. This snippet of text represents value that I had to expend zero effort to obtain. So I engage with the updates: I always at least add a thumbs-up. I might use a different emoji (such as clapping) and possibly add a question about something that was written. I want to learn from these amazing people.
