Holacracy Community of Practice Archive

Posted in Practicing Holacracy • By shammi nanda • 08/20/2018

Is the role window shopped or assigned by the lead link.

When i began doing holacracy without doing a practitioner training, i had picked up an impression that people window shop for the role they would like to take. Also i saw lead link as a 'weak manager' so assumed that lead link wont do any thing in this and people decide which role they want to take. This landed us in lot of trouble as each person was taking the role they wanted irrespective of their capacity to do it, some were taking a role as they wanted to learn the stuff. Or depending on their personal preference they would put more energy in one role and let go other roles which were more important for the purpose of the org, in doing so they were and no one was looking at the whole picture as we had assumed lead link does not even strategise and we all do it together, especially as my background was sociocracy and it seemed bad to have one person strategise for the organisation. This according to me landed us in lot of mess.

I am now convinced that holacracy is not some democracy or consent where each persons personal preference is kept supreme and instead the purpose is there and the lead link also works autocratically in meeting their accountabilities of 'assigning'. This has given more effectiveness. I can share why, as now there is some one who would like to do video production as they persoanally are interested in it, while as a lead link i see we dont need films now and instead need housekeeping so the role offered to the person is of that. if it was before with people choosing, then the person would take both roles and leave house keeping and the organisation suffers. Just sharing this to confirm if my understanding is correct as per the holacracy constitution and also for those who are new to it to not get into being 'nice' organisations but purpose led organisms.

3 Replies

Bernard Marie Chiquet
08/21/2018

[@mention:568484858377802720] You're right, Holacracy is about a purpose driven organization. Notice that Lead Link is a Role that covers functions required for leading a Circle. Per default in Constitution 4.1, one person fills such Role, but you may change that by distributing such functions on different Roles or processes. For instance, you could decide (by adding a Policy) to elect all the Roles within a Circle, if this was the way used before Holacracy adoption.

shammi nanda
08/21/2018

[@mention:449833773917801859], You mean to say that instead of assigning we can elect all the roles, or we are not bound by the constitution to have the lead link and to have them assign the roles.

The lead link accountability in glass frog cannot take any more accountabilities, which implies that lead link can have no more accountabilities than what they are supposed to by the constitution.

I am curious to hear any other opinions also along with this.

Bernard Marie Chiquet
08/22/2018

[@mention:568484858377802720] As stated in constitution section 2.2.3 : "However, a Circle may remove any accountability, or functions of its Lead Link Role, either by placing them on another Role within the Circle, or by defining an alternate means of enacting them."

As an example, and if required by tension or reality, you may create a Policy that states something like "Instead of Lead Link authority, the roles of the circle will be affected using the integrative election process.". Note, I'm not saying you should do that, I'm just saying technically you may do that in alignment with the Constitution.