Cloudy Journey: Open Source is an Amazing Training Ground for Leadership [feedly]

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Open Source is an Amazing Training Ground for Leadership
// OpenDaylight blogs

One of my friends recently posted this on Facebook and it got me thinking.

Boss vs. Leader

Open source projects are an amazing training ground for leaders. If you are an emerging leader in a corporation working on a normal closed/proprietary product, you find yourself endlessly tempted to behave as a boss described above. Maybe it's easier, it's more expedient. On the right side of that list are a set of behaviors you aspire to, but when push comes to shove maybe you just need to ship your products. Other people's feelings can seem like a "nice to have" rather than a "must have". But in the long run, too much "boss" behavior demoralizes your employees and your colleagues, crushes your project and it may even kill your company - but most importantly, somewhere deep down, it kills YOU.

Here's what's funny about an open source project. You can't behave like a boss. Not for a day. It doesn't matter if you're a developer, a project lead, chairing the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) or even if you're the executive director. You act like a "boss" and you're going to be very lonely, very fast.

In some cases it's pretty obvious why you can't act that way. You can't drive your employees because in most cases you don't have any. I can't use my authority to tell the developers what to do. I literally don't have that authority. For the most part the TSC doesn't have authority to tell developers on a project how to go about solving a problem. Giving commands or saying "go" all fall in the same category. Leaders in an open source project are leaders because they have gained the respect of others. Period.

Acting like a boss is possible, it's just counter-productive in open source. Inspire fear and the result you'll get isn't more or better work, but people leaving your sub-project or the project in general. In an open source project, effort follows interest. You have to be someone people want to work with unless you can do everything yourself. One nice thing is that there are many models. There are plenty of colorful, highly opinionated individuals who participate in open source projects. But typically the leaders succeed because they bring serious expertise to the table, and/or they find a way to structure their contributions so that others are less impacted by their challenging "UIs".

Participating in an open source project continually pushes you towards the characteristics on the right. You are constantly recruiting hearts and minds. Very little gets done in open source without diverse teams. Open source attracts contributors from all over the world, creating an environment of diverse ideas and ways of working, communicating etc. As a leader you must develop different styles of leadership. The great diversity in open source gives you lots and lots of chances to practice.

I've had many developer friends express a dilemma they are facing. On one hand they like to code, and they don't particularly want to become dev managers or product managers. On the other hand, they feel like they want to advance their careers and be viewed as leaders in their organizations. One option is the principal engineer or technical fellow route of course. The route of joining an open source project is also a great way to progress. It's a great place to both code and develop as a leader. It can start or advance your career.

I have the great good fortune to work with a number of amazing technical leaders on OpenDaylight. It's no surprise that Madhu Venugopal and Ed Warnicke won the community's Most Valuable Developer and runner-up awards, respectively. They have lots of influence in OpenDaylight because of the ideas they express in various forums, their ability to network, and last but not least the code they write. The more they live the behaviors on the right side of the poster, the more impact they have.

I encourage you to come join us and experience this for yourself!