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The Seven Laws Of Open Source Leadership

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US President Barack Obama, the manager of the English soccer team and Oracle’s Larry Ellison are, of course, all leaders… in the traditional sense. Even as a piece of terminology we naturally associate ‘leadership’ with words like governorship, authority, dominion and hegemony.

But the world has changed and now we are social, constitutionally collaborative and continuously connected -- right?

In the new world of leadership 2.0 where open source has had a deep and enduring impact far beyond its initial purview in software application development, leaders are still required, but they are different.

New 2.0 leaders are often figureheads, initial innovators or nominally positioned (often revolving) community members. Look at Linus Torvalds creator (and steward of) the Linux kernel; he is rarely described as a ‘boss’ in the traditional sense. Look at Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst; he’s a self confessed geek and uses Twitter to speak openly to users, presumably without a corporate approval engine driving him. Look at Microsoft’s Satya Nadella; when Redmond chooses an electrical engineer without the ‘gung-ho corporate bounce’ of his predecessor to lead its ship, you might suspect that something has changed.

Seven new leadership rules

#1 -- Tenure is tenuous

In leadership 2.0, we learn that management and control is not a factor of years served, job title or some position of hierarchical-based authority. New leaders do not assume their position simply by putting in their time and sitting in the boardroom. New leaders are not guaranteed progression and status based upon length of tenure. The new leadership role (if a formal one is defined) comes about as a result of performance, staff & stakeholder engagement and results.

#2 -- Directorship comes in team shape

In leadership 2.0 we see team values come to the fore. This change is partly driven by the rise of social platforms and the ubiquitous connectivity that we all enjoy today. But it is also driven by a kind of workflow natural selection i.e. great leadership comes down to finding out who is best suited (or gifted) to carry out a particular task and then empowering them to do so. This is not management delegation in the traditional sense; this is more organic by far.

#3 -- Charisma is not leadership

Bill Clinton once said something along the lines of if he could meet everyone in the country or world, he could bring them around to his way of thinking. Leaders of the past are often blessed with colossal charisma and an extrovert ability to befriend all comers. The new leaders may still be have extrovert magnetic personalities, but think about Ghandi before you picture Norman Schwarzkopf.

Robert E. Lee probably had it right all along when he said, “I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.”

#4 -- Show, don’t tell

In open source, the best way to sell an idea is to start implementing it. There is little room or patience for those who request features, drop suggestions or lament about a bug, then walk away and expect others to implement. If you think you have found a problem, send a patch. If you want something done, start working on it yourself. In other words, the new leaders don’t just provide direction and pep talks; they roll up their sleeves and start working on it.

“In open source and, by extension, in most endeavors, action talks. Microsoft has adopted an open engineering culture whereby we collaborate through code internally and with software developers across open source communities. Showing instead of telling is making a big difference,” said Gianugo Rabellino, senior director of open source communities at the Microsoft Open Source Programs Office.

#5 -- Autonomy is the new hegemony

In open source software development, goals are openly shared in much the same way as they are in more proprietary frameworks -- but management has a softer edge and does not exist to exert coercive controls in quite the same way. There is a distributed DNA shared by all individuals who can autonomously pull together.

Founder of Visa and champion of the decentralized organization Dee Hock really made the definitive comment here by saying, “Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization. To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control. People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they’ll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways. The organization will become a vital, living set of beliefs.

#6 -- Influence is a factor of merit, not rank

Everyone in an open organization, including the CEO, has to earn a level of influence through merit. This is the new ethos for open business according to Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst. This is the point probably most redolent or reflective of open source software development methodology i.e. it’s only what you do and what you create (or at least, what you strive to try and create) that really matters.

As we have quoted Whitehurst before on Forbes, “Red Hat has shown me alternatives to the traditional approach to leadership and management,” insists Whitehurst. “Ones that are better suited to the fast paced environment of business. The conventional approach to business management was not designed to foster innovation, address the needs and expectations of the current workforce that demands more out of jobs (hello, Millennials), or operate at the accelerated speed of business. [I have come to realize] that the conventional way of running companies has major limitations that are now becoming more acute.”

#7 -- Leadership is not management

As Dr. Travis Bradberry co-author of ‘Emotional Intelligence 2.0’ and president at intelligence training company TalentSmart wrote in his piece ‘What make a leader’ -- this really is the big one here.

“Leadership and management are not synonymous. You have 15 people in your [downward management] line and P&L responsibility? Good for you, hopefully you are a good manager. Good management is needed. Managers need to plan, measure, monitor, coordinate, solve, hire, fire and so many other things. Managers spend most of their time managing things. Leaders lead people.”

Closing thought

Is it time to go and have a conversation with your boss or line manager? Or is time you became an autonomous socially empowered contributor measured by the success of your own creatively unmanaged achievements?

 

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