Throughout my Marine Corps experience, I saw many leaders come and go. And in the work place I have worked with many different bosses. In these situations, who was the boss or leader was always clear cut. It was either the Marine of the highest rank or the employee of the highest pay grade or title. Whether these people were authentic leaders, held reverent power, or were simply just the person placed in the leadership role, it didn’t matter, you listened to them if you wanted to keep your job or avoid reprimand. But volunteer roles carry more ambiguity and being a leader of volunteer groups can be difficult.
So what makes a volunteer group or team different from your typical team situation? Well, the first is the most obvious. It is volunteer based; people can come and go as they please. If they leave it more than likely will not threaten their livelihood. More than likely being there is more of an inconvenience than a necessity. Second, most volunteer groups start with few people knowing each other and everyone starts on an even playing field. Usually there is no “head volunteer” or “expert volunteer”. So an emergent leader is truly needed. Based on my volunteer experience, these teams need to pick a leader quickly.
One of my most recent experiences with these volunteer teams was a rather funny and stereotypical scenario. I had reluctantly volunteered to work on a committee at my child’s school. Anyone who has ever worked on parents based committees knows that they can be a disaster. I, of course, was expecting as much and went in with little expectation and, admittedly, little desire to be there. Please note- I am aware this isn’t the best attitude to approach a situation. Regardless, there I was, sitting with my little notepad, doodling, as all of the moms talked around me about all of their great ideas for this committee. Based on social norms, each of us had left the head of the table open just waiting for someone to take the seat and own it. Sure enough, minutes before we started the meeting, in walked a very smartly dressed woman with a notebook, already organized with her ideas and a meeting agenda. She walked right up to the head of the table and sat. First item on the agenda: “Vote in Committee Head”. Well needless to say the vote was unanimous.
But then the problem with volunteer teams kicked in. People started questioning her leadership, bickering, and not showing up. I realized that without legitimate authority our leader was in a difficult place. She hardly knew the people she was working with and they hardly knew her. McGrath’s Critical Leadership Functions state clearly that leaders need to be able to monitor and take remedial action when there are conflicts (Northouse, 2013, p. 293). And volunteers really don’t appreciate being monitored by someone they hardly know with out “official authority” and they felt the need to “approve” every decision she made. Our leader never had the chance to be efficient. But volunteer teams seem to rarely be open to having a single leader. The idea is liked at first, but as soon as a leader begins to take charge there is push back. Volunteer leaders don’t really have the ability to assess team performance as their position is really very unstable and can be changed arbitrarily.
I wish I could say our committee leader eventually worked out the issues within the team successfully, but that didn’t happen. She very gracefully bowed out once the more dominate members started taking charge. Since that time, I have also bowed out of the committee. To my knowledge it is now just being run by several people who had formed a close connection and everyone else just goes along with their decisions. I hope that over time another emergent leader appears who is more than just dominate but efficient and passionate as well. Maybe when that time comes, I will rejoin the committee. Or I will take a lesson from my military experience:
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications
Jin Man Park says
When reading your blog post, I immediately noticed the difference between the leadership you mentioned experiencing in the Marine Corps that began your post and the story of volunteer work leadership you detailed near the end. It made me think about the information we learned in this past lesson about transformational leadership. I feel it is easy to see that Marine sergeants are leaders that fall in the transformal category. They are attempting to push the soldiers that rank below them to “be all they can be.” They provide both motivation and the instillation of values and the belief in a higher purpose. In contrast, the experience you had with the women who become the leader of the volunteer group would instead fall into the transactional leader as she only served as a leader to fulfill the purposes of the group and as you mentioned, she was not a stable leader and created no willing subordination with her followers. Depending on the tasks of your volunteer committee, it might have needed a more transformational leader if it involved a great deal of interdependent tasks.
Alexis Mi Kim says
Thanks for creating such a great post! You made me laugh especially since I’ve been there too many times. I’ve been asked to lead or co-host different school activities for my children and I know first hand how difficult it is to get the group working together. It can be extremely difficult if you don’t know too many people at the school and trying to lead a group like this can be very daunting. Looking back, I used a similar approach to Tuckman’s group stages. We had an initial meeting where we introduced ourselves, storming phase where I asked a lot of questions on historical info as well as hearing thoughts and ideas from other volunteers. Luckily, norming and performing stages came pretty smoothly once first two stages were accomplished. I wonder if this person spent extra time during the forming phase, the situation could have improved? Maybe you can be the leader next time for this volunteer group!