Multiple Leaders

One Wednesday of this week, I met my manager, Isabelle, for the first time. No, this is not normal for the company, Isabelle had been on medical leave for the last 7 weeks. In the meantime, the dynamics of my group were forced to adjust to her absence. The most senior associate, Kimi, took over as quasi-manager (even though she was still responsible for her associate roles), Kimi did an awesome job and I believe the last 7 weeks was a great learning experience for her and really prepared her to be promoted to manager. By Wednesday, when Isabelle returned, our team was running efficiently; Kimi was comfortable as manager, and we had all gotten used to getting a lot of projects (due to our smaller group). I was very intrigued to see how Isabelle’s return would play out, particular in the first few days when Kimi and Isabelle would be co-managers to ease Isabelle back into the swing of things.

Immediately, I thought to Bales’ Hypothesis of Two Complimentary Leaders, where he discussed that a situation with an “idea man” and a “best-liked man”  working together could be ideal. To an extent, that is exactly what we had on our team. While Kimi has grown into a great manager over the last 6 weeks,  because her title is still “associate” and she is younger than Isabelle, she is much easier to see as a peer and a friend. Isabelle, on the otherhand, is still very well liked by the team. However, there is a sense of experience and professionalism with her that makes her much more of the “idea leader”. For this reason, the combination of the two of them worked really nicely. As a pair, they were efficient because they complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It was great to be a follower of them.

It will be really interesting to see how this pans out in the coming weeks as Isabelle gets more adjusted to being back and Kimi transitions back into her old role. Unfortunately, I will not be able to experience this dynamic because I rotate to a new team this coming week.