LDR.Reference:1.1 - People, roles and relations of leading

A participant brings purposes, experience, capabilities and a life beyond the undertaking. A role describes a contribution expected in some work. An assignment gives a particular person or agent a responsibility under an actual arrangement. These descriptions meet in performance, but they need not agree: a qualified employee can reject the proposed purpose, a willing volunteer can lack the means, and a manager can promise a contribution outside their authority.

Consider an experienced engineer asked to lead a new service. The organizational view identifies who can assign work, allocate time and decide scope. The work view identifies the explanation, exception handling and handovers the service needs. The person’s view may reveal a wish to develop design mastery and a concern that permanent service coordination will remove that opportunity. Asking only whether the engineer is competent misses the participation question. Asking only what motivates the engineer misses the other people’s dependencies. LDR.1 relates these views in a role conversation and follows the resulting arrangement into work.

Leading and following are relations in particular activity. One participant can propose a course, obtain attention for a neglected fact, or invite others to take initiative. The others may rely on that contribution, amend it, decline it or lead the next part themselves. A proposal to lead becomes usable through such responses and the conditions of the work. Expertise can warrant reliance on a technical judgement without giving its bearer power to allocate everyone’s time. Popularity can create influence without warranting the judgement.

Formal authority, actual influence and recognition by participants therefore answer different questions. Authority concerns a valid power to act or decide. Influence concerns what changes people’s interpretation or action. Recognition concerns whether they accept this person’s initiative or guidance for this matter. They can reinforce one another or diverge. A new manager can possess authority before earning confidence; a trusted peer can help the group reconsider its work while lacking power to bind it. Recover the relation that the next action requires rather than searching for one person who possesses every kind of leadership.