Rotating team leaders - does it work?

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we are forming a new team at my workplace. we were discussing who should be team leader and decided we all have good leadership skills and want to find other businesses who have tried rotating leadership roles, or sharing them in some other effective way. have you tried it or know of a company that has departments that have tried it? thanks

-- val (val@healthcommunities.com), October 11, 2000

Answers

Only in a manufacturing environment and only as implementation of a starpoints system and only before working out role clarity issues. The typical size of the organizations we consult for employ 2000+ people.

As a starpoint you can set up 5 star, 6 or even 7 stars. You give specific responsibilities to each member of the star and after a certain period of time you revolve the star.

Your leaders then become facilitators in the process providing resources to each star team. How effective was it? It turned around two loss making divisions and improved the moral of front line employees.

I can't really comment on a medical industry environment because I would have to be there to make that assessment and even if I could, we are operating on a full order book with the clients we have on our current roster.

I wouldn't just rotate leadership roles without having some strategic focus as to the outcomes you want to reach. Rotating leadership roles isn't as simple as pass the parcel otherwise everyone would be doing it, but if you design the program effectively and apply metrics to evaluate progress, it can be a successful strategy.

-- Mark Zorro (zorromark@consultant.com), October 12, 2000.


Hi ! here are some of my suggestions to implement the team leader rotation system : 1) Centralization, where the top people will choose the leader for each time frame.

2) Maybe the system can be project-oriented. For example, if the project emphasizes customer relations, then maybe a leader proficient customer relations. should be the leader for the project.

3) Maybe u can try creating a system where no one is the leader but everyone is a facilitator.

4) U can try having the team members decide by themselves who should be the leader for month 1,2,3 and so on.

If u choose to implement any of my ideas, please inform me of the results. Thanx !

-- Mohd. Ashadi (neometal2@eudoramail.com), October 12, 2000.


Is it possible to view the work ahead as a "project" with phases, deliverables and outcomes? Then, you may want to devise a "project management team" (instead of the traditional project manager) consisting of leaders from each functional area that contributes to the successful outcome. Whatever the outcome or "product" your team is trying to deliver, you will likely need a lead for each of the following perspectives: 1. business requirements, 2. user requirements (who uses your product?), 3. project constraints (budget/schedule), 4. testing/QA, 5. development/construction, 6. implementation/rollout.

The team of leads should be peers of each other with specialists "reporting to" or working with them. This teem of peers should have full authority to both negotiate among themselves adn decide what needs to done and how to get it done within project constraints. The idea that I have outlined here is known as the "Microsoft Solutions Framework" (www.microsoft.com/msf).

-- Aninda Roy (aninda@improvize.com), October 14, 2000.


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