This document discusses leadership in open source software projects. It begins by defining leadership as demonstrating responsibility for ensuring work gets done, rather than attaining formal roles. Good leadership involves growing a project's social capital. The document then examines leadership attributes like fairness and listening skills. It also discusses leadership styles, mentoring, and communications. Mentoring is presented as an important part of leadership, helping others develop skills through experiences. The key to leadership communications is acts like summarizing, acknowledging, and unblocking others' work.

1. Leadership in Open Source
scott.wilson@it.ox.ac.uk
@scottbw

2. What I’ll be covering in this session
1. What is leadership in an OSS project?
2. Leadership attributes, character and styles
3. Mentoring
4. Leadership communications

3. 1. What is leadership in OSS?
Leadership is really just
common sense. Which is
why its so difficult.

4. John Quincy Adams
If your actions
inspire others to
dream more, learn
more, do more and
become more, you
are a leader

5. What is leadership?
• Leadership is a characteristic that can be
demonstrated in any role, in any function, and
at any time
• Leadership is about the tone of our behaviour,
not a set of rules to be followed
• Leadership is not about doing everything
yourself

6. Management is not leadership?
Managers Leaders
Follow Rules Follow Instincts
Focus on getting things
done
Focus on getting the right
things done
Side with safety Side with risk
Focus on delivering today Focus on articulating
tomorrow
Mark Anderson: The Leadership Book

7. Does OSS need leadership?
“… what is leadership in open source communities?
It's accountability. It's shouldering the responsibility
for making sure work gets done. Largely that
means making sure that those who want to do
work can do it - that there are no roadblocks for
those doing the work. It may also mean doing the
work yourself if no one else steps up. Sadly, many
people don't realize this and work towards attaining
leadership roles ... This almost always fails in a
community ... In short, if there's a change you
want made, and you aren't participating in
making it happen, then you aren't doing it
the open source way.” - David Nalley

8. Cooperation vs. Collaboration
The genius of open source has
been to break projects into
chunks where people can go
and work in isolation.
Then bring it back and fold it
into the project.
This is what makes projects
efficient.
Always be thinking about how
you can make problems into
co-operative problems,
rather than collaborative
problems.
David Eaves

9. Management in cooperative work is
through leadership
- communicate the vision, tone and norms
- ensure appropriate division of work to
prevent deadlocks and stalling
- minimize overlaps that can cause conflict
- facilitate communication over shared
concerns and overlaps
- shepherd occasional larger-scale strategic
refactoring

10. In summary…
OSS projects are social capital:
leadership is about growing and
directing that social capital

11. 2. Leadership attributes, character
and styles

12. Leadership Attributes

13. Standard Bearers
Establish the ethical framework of an organisation
Set the tone of work by their demeanor
Set the norms of work through their behaviour

14. Developers
Help others through teaching and mentoring
Take opportunities both to learn and to teach

15. Integrators
Orchestrate the activities of the organisation
Articulate the vision of the future

16. ACTIVITY
Think about one OSS leader who you've
worked with in the past. How much did
they act as standard bearer, developer
(of people) and integrator?
Did they pay too much attention to one and
ignore the others, or did they balance out
these attributes?

17. Leadership Character

18. Leadership Character Traits
Demeanor
Visibility
Messaging
Communicating direction
Approachability
Listening
Fairness
Performance mgt
Personal development
Open to innovation
Respecting diversity
Principles
Honesty
Respect
Fairness
Clarity
Openness
Collegiality
Decisiveness
Humility
(Respect for) Diversity
Bravery
Mark Anderson: The Leadership Book

19. Even more lists!
USMC:
Justice
Judgment
Dependability
Initiative
Decisiveness
Tact
Integrity
Enthusiasm
Bearing
Unselfishness
Courage
Knowledge
Loyalty
Endurance
TPG:
Honest
Competent
Forward-looking
Inspiring
Intelligent
Fair-minded
Broad-minded
Courageous
Straightforward
Imaginative
Tanya Prive,
Forbes:
Honesty
Ability to delegate
Communication
Sense of humour
Confidence
Commitment
Positive Attitude
Creativity
Intuition
Ability to Inspire

20. OK, so..?
Don’t be too concerned with the lists..!
Take a process approach: appraise your
strengths and weaknesses, and devise
strategies to address what you see as problem
areas
To be a better leader, you need to take your
own personal development seriously

21. Questionnaires and self-
tests can bring useful
insights, even when they
are complete nonsense
Self-analysis
To develop leadership character you should be
reflective and self-aware

22. ACTIVITY
Reflective thinking is important for leaders - you need to calibrate and
take an outside view of your leadership behaviour and demeanour.
Ask yourself:
Am I fair?
Do I listen to others?
Do I take responsibility?
Do I care about other people?
Am I honest?
Am I willing to debate?
Do my colleagues trust me?
Where do I excel as a leader?
What are my weaknesses - where do I know I could do better?

23. Common mistakes by leaders
Lack of contact
Inconsistency in messaging
Unfairness in decision making
Taking feedback badly

24. How to Receive Feedback
Leaders need to analyse feedback rather
than just react to it
avoid temptation to be defensive, or
dismissive
avoid dwelling on negative feedback
thank people for feedback - even negative.
show you are listening - don't just respond
automatically, but demonstrate that you
take feedback seriously and are thinking it
through

25. Common problems experienced by
leaders
Feelings of isolation
Dwelling on mistakes
Burnout
Arrogance
Doubt

26. Are you a leader, or just
acting like one? How could
you tell the difference?

27. Leadership Styles
Autocratic
Participative
Delegative
We’ve given you a leadership styles
questionnaire so you can find out what your
preferred leadership style might be

28. 3. Mentoring

29. Why should I be a mentor?
Mentoring is a key part of leadership
Leaders are often the beneficiaries of mentoring
Leaders pass on their expertise and develop
their community through mentoring
Leaders support their own self-development by
mentoring others

30. Mentoring vs. Coaching
Mentoring is an indefinite, relationship based activity with several specific
but wide ranging goals…over an extended time period. The agenda is open
and continues to evolve... seeks to build wisdom – the ability to apply skills,
knowledge and experience to new situations and processes
Coaching involves ... meeting very specific objectives within a set period of
time … mainly concerned with performance and the development of certain
skills… there is usually a planned programme with a much shorter timeframe
than in mentoring, so the learning goals are usually determined in advance.
(However, often used interchangeably, e.g. GSoC is
probably “coaching” rather than “mentoring” according
to this definition)
CIMA: Mentoring and Coaching Topic Guide

31. What is mentoring for?
Developing knowledge
working with mentees to build their skills and knowledge,
either of the domain, or project-specific knowledge
Developing attitudes
working with mentees to develop their demeanor as a
community member
Reinforcing norms
working with mentees to encourage specific behaviours
Building commitment
encouraging deeper participation in the community

32. Key considerations for mentoring
Frequency of contact
realistically, how much time can you spend?
when do you want to be available?
Method of contact
f2f, skype, email…
Duration of partnership
do you want to set a limit? Or continue as long as you’re
both happy to?

33. Key considerations for mentoring
Confidentiality
Consider how you will handle confidential
communications; for example you may need to discuss
difficult situations in the community with mentees
Setting expectations
Be clear about what you are offering, particularly time
and contact commitments

34. Experiential learning
Adapted from David Kolb’s Learning Cycle

35. Giving feedback
Giving feedback is a crucial part of mentoring
Feedback should be frequent and timely
Be as specific and relevant as possible
I.e. “your method names should be more self-
explanatory and have comments to help other
developers” not “your code is sloppy”
Always acknowledge achievements and progress
Keep it simple and concise

36. Getting started
Nurturing early contributors
can start at any time, just identify a new
contributor, and offer to work with them
Mentoring in formal programmes
join an established programme, or start one up
for your project. Established programmes have
a support network and processes

37. Mentoring programmes
Google Summer of Code
https://developers.google.com/open-source/soc/
VALS Semester of Code
http://semesterofcode.com/
Outreach Programme for Women
https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen

38. 4. Leadership communications

39. Leadership communication acts
Summation
Paraphrasing
Acknowledging
Decisions
Reframing
Unblocking
Individual follow-ups

40. ACTIVITY
Reflect on your communications
with your project - can you identify
an example where you have used
one of the communication actions
we've listed?

41. Questions

42. Resources
• Mark Anderson, The Leadership Book (Financial Times Series)
• David Nalley, Leadership in Open Source Communities
http://opensource.com/business/11/2/leadership-open-source-
communities
• David Eaves, Wiki's and Open Source: Collaborative
or Cooperative? http://eaves.ca/2007/02/05/wikis-and-open-
source-collaborative-or-cooperative/