As I’ve been looking for my next role, I’ve wrestled with the question of going back to being an individual contributor (i.e. a developer) or to continue on the track of technical leadership I was pursuing the last few years.
A friend recommended I read “The Motive” by Patrick Lencioni to help guide my thoughts on the question. Written as a fable, “The Motive” tells the story of two CEOs in the same industry and the advice one offers to the other.
One CEO (Shay) is worried about his job and the ability of his company to continue to grow. The other CEO (Liam) is leading a successful company in a nearby market and starts to mentor Shay about what it means to be a leader.
As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Shay has been motivated by the title, salary, and perks of being a leader, but has fundamentally failed to lead his organization by doing the hard things leaders need to do.
Shay doesn’t believe what Liam is teaching him, but over the course of the narrative, he begins to see that his focus should be on what’s best for the company, not himself.
The last section of the book outlines the lesson: The motive is either to be a reward-centered leader or a responsibility-centered leader. The former is where Shay was, the latter was how Liam worked.
The lesson also points out five areas where reward-centered leaders fail:
- Developing the leadership team
- Managing subordinates (and making them manage theirs)
- Having difficult and uncomfortable conversations
- Running great team meetings
- Communicating constantly and repetitively to employees
“The Motive” is a quick read (I read it in an afternoon). While it was written for C-level executives, I feel it applies to anyone in a position of leadership. Leadership is more about those being led than the one leading. “Servant leadership” is the only kind.
This book did help clarify my thoughts. I don’t look at leadership as something to feed my ego. One of my favorite things about leading developers is watching them grow into careers bigger than the role they worked in for me.