Leading when you're not the boss?

by Evan Leybourn on      2 minutes read

How can you be a leader if you don't manage anyone?

We have entered a new business era - a time of leaders rather than managers. And there’s plenty of help available on how to be a leader, much of it focused on being better boss. Don’t get me wrong - this is fantastic - it can’t come soon enough. But not all of us are bosses. How can you be a leader if you don’t manage anyone?

The core premise of this workshop is understanding the difference between Institutional Authority (where your right to lead is instilled by virtue of the position you hold in the organisation) and Personal Authority (where your right to lead is instilled by those around you). Come along and learn some practical leadership techniques that you can use as a developer, tester, or yes - even as a boss, to accrue and wield personal authority within your organisation.

This will include;

  • Influencing others
  • Understand motivation and incentives
  • Presenting yourself with confidence
  • Co-delegation to your peers (outcomes not activities)
  • Transparency as a means to limit WIP and say “no” to people

The final secret in this workshop; you can (and should) hold personal authority over your boss. As long as you are competent, trusted and aligned - you can tell your boss what to do.

Learning Outcomes

  • To make you think about your role as a leader.
  • Understand the characteristics of leadership (trust, competence and commonality or purpose)
  • Influencing others
  • Understand motivation and incentives
  • Presenting yourself with confidence
  • Co-delegation to your peers (outcomes not activities)
  • Transparency as a means to limit WIP and say “no” to people

Mechanics

This will be an active presentation - each topic in the learning objectives will be intersperced with practical exercises. Some will be done in groups, others by volunteers from the audience.

Practical Exercises

  • Presentation Karaoke to demonstrate the impact of confidence (5 min total).
  • Empathy mapping to demonstrate motivation (10 min)
  • Outcome profiling to demonstrate influencing & motivation (5 min)
  • Negotiation tactics, zero-sum negotiation and ultimatum game (anchoring & win-win) (10 min)