Leadership Style at Cavi
I have been working at Cavi Consulting for three weeks now and feel as though I now have a good grasp on the leadership structure at Cavi. From the start, the leaders at Cavi have preached the message that the leadership structure at Cavi is quite different than that of traditional consulting firms. It’s one thing to say this, but it’s another thing to actually live up to the message that they preach. I can now firmly say that they were telling the truth.
Every worker at Cavi has an amount of autonomy that is unthinkable for traditional consulting companies. My boss and the other leaders at Cavi firmly believe that the best work will be accomplished when people are actually interested in the work they are completing, and therefore give us a tremendous amount of freedom to choose what tasks and projects we want to work on. They do prioritize some different tasks and projects over others, but they never tell you what thing you need to be working on at any given moment. On my first day at Cavi, I was given a list of about 8 different projects that they thought might interest me and then allowed me to choose which I wanted to work on.
After choosing a project, teams are assembled with leaders. However, the bosses don’t select the project leader, rather the person with the most interest in the project will often volunteer to take lead on it. The projects given by leadership are often not very specific and this is done purposefully. Cavi’s leadership believes that everyone they’ve selected at Cavi is smart and capable of competing tasks without needing approval on every little thing they do, so workers at Cavi have the freedom to go about working on projects however they choose. The leadership at Cavi, however, is more than willing to answer questions or assist you if you needed to be pointed in the right direction on a given task.
So, sounds as though there is upper-level leadership, but the leaders within the teams play a critical role; that some direction is provided, but the individuals that comprise the teams and the teams have the capacity (and support) to make decisions. Sounds like a lovely environment. Will be interesting to see if there is ever a situation in which upper-level management has to make a decision without team support? Would be interesting to consider what elements of their vetting process (interviewing, hiring, etc.) enables them to be so confident in the individuals that they bring on board – to facilitate such trust.