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Leading Your Peers

Leading a group of your peers can be one of the most difficult and awkward situations you can face. In a traditional setting the leader is immediately distinguished from their subordinates via their direct authority over them, but when you are all peers that distinctive separation is nonexistent. Paradoxically while the peer leadership scenario occurs daily within every organizations it remains largely overlooked in the world of professional leadership development.

To best exhibit the impact of peer leadership I am going to highlight a billion dollar organization that is built on teamwork, the New York Jets of the National Football League. Beginning in 2007, the NFL began permitting teams to name up to six players as team captains; these team captains are selected by theirs peer to represent them on and off the field as their spokesman. In 2012 the NY Jets became the only team in the NFL to have no team captain. During the previous season the NY Jets were the joke of the NFL. While they were thought to have an abundance of talent that could potentially equate to a championship team, they fell far from that because of their lack of team leadership. There were highly publicized disagreements within the team that led to physical altercations, detrimental comments to the media, player fines, employee firings, and most importantly of all losses. The executives of the NY Jets addressed this issue in the off-season by hiring a leadership development company to provide a one day leadership seminar to the team's veteran players.

So how can you effectively lead your peers?

1. Pride- The first step to effectively leading a group of your peers is to set your pride to the side. While you may have come from a previous situation where you had authority over others you must realize and adapt to the situation at hand, you are an equal member of a team now.

2. Leadership style- You must adjust your personal leadership style. In peer leadership an autocratic style of leadership will most likely produce negative results, while a participation style of leadership will likely produce positive results. There is no scientific equation to choosing the leadership style to use you need to gauge the personality and aura of the group and determine from there; for example if you have a group of people who are not seizing the initiative nor providing any input maybe an autocratic approach is needed.

3. Insecurity- In some group settings, members are hesitant to provide input because they are unsure of themselves of ideas and do not want to simply embarrass themselves. This is where you must exude an environment of comfort, sometimes with an ice breaking joke or sometimes with just leading out with your ideas and asking for feedback.

4. Communication- To optimize a group's performance the task or mission needs to be clearly understood by all and everyone's individual role needs to be identified. This can take some time because members of the group may not know each other's strengths and weaknesses. With effective communication this process can be completed promptly.

5. Proficiency- When stepping up as a group leader you must realize that everyone is watching. You must be on your A game when completing your individual task because you are setting the example for the team to follow. This is your substitute for authority.

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Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg Synopsis

1.  The Leadership Ambition Gap: What Would You Do if You Weren't Afraid? - Anecdotes are given in which Judith Rodin questions why highly talented women choose to leave careers and become homemakers and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon gives her opinion that a double standard makes ambition perceived as a negative quality in a woman when it would be positive in a man
2. Sit at the Table - Anecdotes are given about Peggy McIntosh stating that women are pressured not to accept compliments about their accomplishments, Padmasree Warrior stating that people should consider taking opportunities even if they do not feel qualified to execute them, and Ginni Rometty discussing how she took risks even staking personal failure. Also discussed is the theory that females more frequently than males display impostor syndrome concerns and the concept of "fake it till you make it".
3. Success and Likeability - A social experiment is summarized in which two resumes stating business success are presented to various people. The resumes are identical except that one names a female job candidate and the other a male candidate. In most cases, people found the success of the male candidate to be appealing and the success of the female candidate to be worrisome. Anecdotes are given in which Mary Sue Coleman states that in negotiation women in business are often "relentlessly pleasant" and Arriana Huffington had to accept that she had to accept a lot of criticism.
4. It's a Jungle Gym, Not a Ladder - A discussion reconsiders the concept of the "corporate ladder" suggesting that the climb to success is more like a jungle gym with multiple paths to the top. Anecdotes are given about Eric Schmidt's advice to take jobs in growing fields with advancement opportunities, even if they are less prestigious than more established positions and how Lawrence Summers seemed to be critical with the author, then gave her more respect when she asserted herself.
5. Are You My Mentor? - The advice is given that working professionals need a mentor but that the relationship between teacher and student cannot be forced. An anecdote is given about Clara Shih regularly asking questions in business that showed respect for her mentors' time.
6. Seek and Speak Your Truth - As executive staff at Facebook, the author says that she along with others tried to make Facebook a non-hierarchical organization where everyone is free to speak their thoughts and criticism. Anecdotes are given in which Robert Rubin seeks advice from people who have fresh perspectives rather than deep experience in an existing culture and how Howard Schultz was open about sharing emotions.
7. Don't Leave before you Leave - The author states that she has seen women forego career advancement for family, but that she feels that some women do this too far in advance of developing family life. Anecdotes are given about Peggy Orenstein finding that even girl children anticipate imagining giving up career options to favor family life. The author then states that as a hiring and promoting manager, she often asks women of a certain age whether they plan to have children. She further states that she does not transgress discrimination laws against women who will need time off from work to have children, but rather wants the employees to be comfortable taking positions even when they are about to have a child.
8. Make your Partner a real Partner - The author explores the concept of a "designated parent", which is supposed to be the person who does most of the childcare and is usually the woman. She reviews data that state that of the 28 women who direct Fortune 500 companies, only one had never married. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is cited as a source of information on the women's movement.
9. The Myth of Doing it All - An anecdote is given in which Tina Fey says that the rudest question which people regularly ask women is "How do you do it all?", because the assumption is that a woman who is achieving in business must not have time to spend with family, and this same question is not asked to men in business. An anecdote about Laurie Glimcher describes how she recognizes that she cannot do all work and is frank about her limits.
10. Let's Start Talking about it - The author recounts a bitter story when as a congressional page Tip O'Neill patted her on the head condescendingly and asked if she was a pom-pom girl, meaning a cheerleader for male work. Kenneth Chenault is given as an example of a CEO who attempts to defend women from sexism in the workplace.
11. Working Together Toward Equality - The author recalls the media attention that Marissa Mayer received for accepting a job as CEO of Yahoo while in her third trimester of pregnancy, and said that women get extra scrutiny in the workplace. She states that stay-at-home mothers frequently look down upon women with advanced careers, and that it is necessary that there not be tension between these groups.

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