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> Everyone can be a leader. This seems like a naive point of view. In any real organisation people naturally form hierarchies, even if they're implicit and uns

by zik 11y ago

> Everyone can be a leader. This seems like a naive point of view. In any real organisation people naturally form hierarchies, even if they're implicit and unstated. It's just human nature. Then if someone lower in the hierarchy starts to suddenly act like a leader they'll have other people who are notionally higher than them in the hierarchy stomp on them, quelling the usurper initiative in order to maintain their own position in the social hierarchy. This is such a deep part of human nature that people don't even know they're doing it. It's well documented in psychology texts but for some reason people deny it happens in their own workplace. Yet I've observed it happening in every workplace I've ever been in.

draw_down 11y ago
Yep, I agree. In pretty much every organization I've worked in, some engineers are more equal than others. If you're a golden child, you'll have praise heaped upon you for whatever you do. If you're not one of them, you can take charge and go above & beyond if you want... but probably no one will care. So at least for me, I really question the value of doing those things nowadays. I just do my work, try hard to do a good job, help out if I'm asked, and that's that. The worst aspect of this dynamic is when you see one of the "more equal" people doing something that's going to cause pain and trouble down the road, but you know nobody is gonna listen. That's life as an engineer I guess.
edwinnathaniel 11y ago
Perhaps both of you and the author are half-right? :) This is his statement: > People can demonstrate acts of leadership regardless of their title and can do so in many different ways, simply by taking action on something without the explicit expectation or request for it. A simple example of what he's saying would be a person driving a change. Some of us, developers, probably have been in a not-so-great situation (e.g.: build takes too long, culture of not writing unit-tests/automation-tests, etc) and occasionally there's this one passionate individual that starts a movement slowly but sure in order to change the situation to a better one. I think that's what he's saying. What you're saying is probably akin to someone lower in the rank starts telling everybody including his/her supervisor/leads how to do their job properly in order to fix the situation... :D

by zik 11y ago

draw_down 11y ago

Yep, I agree. In pretty much every organization I've worked in, some engineers are more equal than others. If you're a golden child, you'll have praise heaped upon you for whatever you do. If you're not one of them, you can take charge and go above & beyond if you want... but probably no one will care. So at least for me, I really question the value of doing those things nowadays. I just do my work, try hard to do a good job, help out if I'm asked, and that's that. The worst aspect of this dynamic is when you see one of the "more equal" people doing something that's going to cause pain and trouble down the road, but you know nobody is gonna listen. That's life as an engineer I guess.

edwinnathaniel 11y ago

Perhaps both of you and the author are half-right? :) This is his statement: > People can demonstrate acts of leadership regardless of their title and can do so in many different ways, simply by taking action on something without the explicit expectation or request for it. A simple example of what he's saying would be a person driving a change. Some of us, developers, probably have been in a not-so-great situation (e.g.: build takes too long, culture of not writing unit-tests/automation-tests, etc) and occasionally there's this one passionate individual that starts a movement slowly but sure in order to change the situation to a better one. I think that's what he's saying. What you're saying is probably akin to someone lower in the rank starts telling everybody including his/her supervisor/leads how to do their job properly in order to fix the situation... :D