Are you planning to set up a local Hive community? Then, consider the following.
What is Decentralized Leadership?
More and more companies are considering a decentralized leadership structure, but is this right for your organization? An example of an organization that follows decentralized leadership is Bitshares. In Bitshares, whoever has an idea on how services can perform better can step up, share the idea to all community members, explain how the idea can be executed, and why the idea should be voted by community members for funding. Once the idea gets approved through a voting system, the project will get the funding it needs. This is very similar to how the "Proposals" in Hive work.
This however requires much familiarity, mastery and expertise from people involved within the organization. There should also be clarity on the role of the members of the community for this structure to work. A strong system, transparency and governance are assumed to be in place. If successful, this form of leadership structure will result to innovation and creative solutions that are sustainable and impactful to the community.
Unfortunately, Decentralized Leadership will not work if the members lack experience, and are unclear when it comes to their roles and responsibilities. In situations like this, capable leadership is a must as he or she will have to get people organized, make sure that they are fully engaged, inspired and motivated. Communication plays a very important role here, as directives will need to come top down.
In situations where community members are new, centralized leadership has its advantage, as critical decisions are important, and the environment can rapidly change, is fast-paced and requires decisiveness. The trade off though of this structure is that innovative ideas do not thrive in this hierarchical environment, and leadership loss and incompetence can be cataclysmic.
What is a Decentralized Organization?
Source: Click Here
Communities can also follow a decentralized structure as an organization. Decentralized organizations follow the concept called Holocracy where traditional powers reserved to leaders are distributed to teams or sub-groups, or individual members. In a decentralized organization, hierarchy may still exists but decision making is primarily delegated to teams who are accountable for these decisions.
Here are some examples of Decentralized Organizations:
- In Subway - Hiring is done by the stores but menu and marketing are with the centralized headquarters.
- In Johnson & Johnson - Units functions autonomously, but focus maybe on particular components or parts of a product requiring cooperation between units.
- In Valve - the leadership structure is flat, eliminating job titles, and employees are allowed to work on or initiate projects they choose.
- In Hive - decision are made by witnesses who were in turn were voted by the community, and proposals are upvoted prior to funding.
Polarities, Problems and Opportunities
This ultimately boils down to culture and strategy. In the Philippines Blockchain community, we have a good number of veteran members who have been with Steem for years. Their experience and expertise are massive, and a significant number of them wanted to help grow the Filipino community in Hive. A good number of old members have had their fair experience of ups and downs, which they are also willing to share to help bring awareness to the opportunities that are present in the community.
On a opposite of the spectrum are new blockchain community members who need help. How do we onboard them to the blockchain so that they remain inspired, engaged and motivated to make more amazing contents.
And let's not forget the shady members, they too are part of the community. Their ultimate goal is to maximize the potential of the blockchain to earn more money. They are ever present in spam and auto bots which dilutes and poisons the Hive Ecosystem. I am glad though that the culture of Hive has remained vigilant on ensuring that Bots and Spams do not poison the thriving community of content creators who are working hard to bring their contents to the greater Hive community.
Which Structure to Adopt?
My quick answer here is to adopt a mix of both. The leadership structure needs to be decentralized, while growth strategies, vision and mission need to follow a centralized theme. Unfortunately, building decentralized leadership is not an easy feat, and I worry that in the Philippines, this may not even work because of our divisive culture. As a nation, we follow the collective, and we fear the individual, and some individuals including leaders are opportunists just watch our government and you'll know what I meant. Leaders in the Philippines are very poor when it comes to integrity and accountability.
Call to Action
The leader or leaders who will take on this challenge of building a decentralized community will have so much on his or her shoulders, and policies on transparency and accountability will need to be built and communicated, and that can be a lot of work. Also a question on whether organization should be "for profit" and "non-profit" should also be addressed, and all these will need to be properly documented, communicated and shared.
I look forward to seeing more structure, strategy and plan in the coming days. I will continue to watch, observe, and participate. But will not hesitate to call out practices that I see to be deterrent to the growth of the blockchain community, and ultimately the adoption of more Pinoys to digital cryptocurrencies and development of decentralized applications in the future.
Sources:
- https://study.com/academy/lesson/decentralized-organization-definition-chart-quiz.html
- http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/panelists/2010/09/the-pros-and-cons-of-decentralized-leadership.html
- http://www.anneloehr.com/2018/07/19/should-your-organization-be-decentralized/
- http://medium.com/@kallia/decentralized-leadership-cfa01099f65d
- http://hive.blog/steem/@tarazkp/steem-and-the-decisions-we-make
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://pinoyviajero.blog/community-governance-on-decentralized-leadership-organization/
A good leader needs to be active first in a community he / she is dwelling. This leader should've at least shared the same sentiments and ideals of each member first to know all the things needed to be addressed. The top-notch skills will just be enhanced while these leader-wannabies are immersed in this active community to know the real sentiments of the group.
Creating community guidelines seem to be hard if the platform itself is decentralized. This is the greatest challenge one should encounter to get the sympathy and coordination of even not everyone but the majority.
The number one goal of a leader should always be to support everyone to be successful and not only for his personal gain. This leader should represent himself as the totality of each and everyone's performance based on the productivity and earnings that everyone is getting.
What are the things that this leader could do if he sees that this particular member only receives less earnings compared to some members who portrays the same level of activity with members getting the huge amount of upvotes?
Take time to think about it.
Have a blessed Sunday everyone!
I couldnt agree more. It is important for leaders to really understand the community, and to immerse himself or herself by getting his/her hands dirty. Glad to have met you @fycee. I really appreciate the work you do for Appics. Excited to hear your presentation later. 😊
sir @pinoy.viajero , ang galing ng pagkasulat po .... as a newbie sarap basahin po .
Hala. Salamat bro. Sana makaattend ka sa community meeting later. Dami aattend. Yey! Sharing tayo ng best practices. Im glad you enjoyed this article. 😊
Hi! This post is informative, I can tell that you have quite an experience with communities. I agree with your point on culture and strategy. I'm new to the community but I'm hoping to see accountability, integrity, responsibility and transparency here ❤️
Transparency, yes... You will find everything here! Just keep posting and share your ideas and thoughts. Continue engage for the community... 😊
Ayos. This puts a little perspective on things. I agree with most of what you said in the post. Personally, I think that maximization of the potential to earn is not limited to bots and shady characters. "Good" members should also strive to maximize potential earnings. The difference being: shady characters have distorted values and don't care about the way they earn, whereas "good" members will not cross a certain moral/ethical line to earn on the blockchain.
Which, brings me to my view on leadership. I believe that the type of organizational structure follows vision, but more than that, good leaders, great leaders will lead the organization well however the organization is set up.
Integrity doesn't always come with popularity, but sadly, that's how we are wired as a population. So yeah, I'm hoping that we get lucky and get a leader with both qualities. If not, I would choose integrity over being popular. But that's just my 2 cents.
Great post. Well researched. Solid steucture. Well done sir. :)
This honestly made me think of how I was doing as a leader. Great leadership is comparable to a cool mom/dad type of parenting. Yung tipong they will listen to their kids, give in to all the fun but are still able to draw the line and set the foot when needed.
It's a challenging feat, running or maintaining a decentralized community. Right now, we have one vision. A united community of successful Filipino Hivers.
I'm not sure if I can be that cool mom type of parent to us all, but as far as I know, that's my ultimate leadership goal. Please know that all suggestions and ideas, basta para sa ikauunlad ng ating community, welcome na welcome yan. After all, ang end goal nating lahat dito ay ang mapaunlad tayong lahat. Gawin natin nang sama sama, sabay sabay.
Another great post @pinoy.viajero. Amazing ka talaga. :)