On Mon, 2022-04-04 at 13:33 +0200, Sarah Julia Kriesch wrote:
Then I want to reference also from the recommended books. The Open Organization Leaders Manual, p.78: "Exponential leadership occurs when an individual's impact gets multiplied. Exponential leaders compound and integrate the strengths of teams (groups of people) to create new organizational capabilities. They create new leaders and catalyze vibrant ecosystems of teams that channel their passion and energy toward a shared organizational purpose to deliver rapid results. Their leadership contributions have a powerful effect, with the potential to profoundly influence an organization's culture."
Thanks! Very interesting to see you jump to that part of the document (for anyone wishing to following along - https://github.com/open-organization/open-org-leaders-manual/blob/master/10-... ) The whole document describes 3 stages of leadership. Leading Personally, Leading through a team, and Leading exponentially by catalzing other leaders. If I look at the principles of the rest of that essay and super-impose openSUSE atop it, it seems to undermine any suggestion that _The Board_ have a particually special role to play in such a journey. In openSUSE we can all choose to lead (personally) in whatever areas we wish. I've done that, you've done, the door is wide open for others to do that. The same goes for Team Leadership, as you are well aware with the team you have around you from your past leadership of the Localization process in openSUSE. Exponential leadership, taking someones leadership and compounding it with others, creating new leaders in the process, is not something we need the Board to do, but something good leaders can do throughout the project. Just thinking of my own personal story in openSUSE, I can think of countless examples of this - Kostas being an exponential leader and pushing me forward to contribute more to openSUSE. Myself trying to be somewhat of an exponential leader encoraging and mentoring various people across the Project, many of whom have become leaders in their own right (as examples - Sasi, Marina, Dario, Neal). There's lots I used to do as a 'leader' in openSUSE which is now handled by people better at it than I..being able to obsolete yourself is a key part of exponential leadership. It's an important part of community building, sure. I agree with you there. And it's certainly an area where we have weaknesses - your example of the Localization team no longer have a coordinator is a good one. But, where I disagree is - we don't need the Board to do it - infact the Board as an entity is compromised by it's role as a dispute resolution body and escalation point for various private matters. Speaking from experience, it's REALLY hard to balance those burdens with a desire to do _anything else_ for the Project so I can totally understand when good leaders in the community find themselves ironically _less_ visible as a Board member than they did as a non- Board member. Sticking with the Localization Team example - It's not the Board's job to figure out who should coordinate it.. it's the Team's job to figure out who amonst them should do it - or whether they actually need a coordinator at all. Given things are still getting translated, maybe we don't need one, maybe the community is mature enough to figure that out on it's own. That would be a good thing, no?
Look into our community and our situation. How do you define people with passion for their role in the community? Are these people role- models or how do you define them?
I do not want to judge nor define people who volunteer this community. I want our volunteer maintainers to be able to define themselves. I believe this is the core point Henne was also trying to make with starting this thread, with his suggestions as to how openSUSE could be better at doing that. None of Henne's suggestions require the Board to do any of them. - R