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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