Ego Check

This is a flat structured community, meaning, the network is sustained because of a very distributed form of leadership. The network is sustained because of the idea of social capital, where leadership is and should be formed through the good works, contributions, good relationships, and value one has provided to the community – not because you have declared yourself a leader.

The leadership is decentralized on applications and its app creators, which makes for the idea that the applications are autonomous, have their own governance and decision making, and their own cultures. ProgCode can be considered one of the applications in the network, with the key goal of becoming conduits of collaboration between these applications.

Having said that, we as staffers – simply because of the term or becoming staffers/coordinators – will inevitably be seen as perceived leaders within the community. Our role as staffers inevitably puts the perception of a dominating figure within the community, and because of that we need to setup an ego check to be able for us to be mindful about our position in the community.

Here are the following ego checks for you to consider as you engage with the community.

1. Perceived Position of Power

As staffers we are perceived as someone who is in a position of power. We have to be mindful of that and make an effort to come from a place of service. Staffers should also be mindful and making it a point to let people understand that they are working from a position of service, not granted power.

2. Perception of a Dominating Force

As someone who is perceived as someone who is in a position of power, we have to be mindful about the fact that we can be perceived as a dominating force. We have to make an effort to switch that idea to become a resource and entity of support.

3. Connections as Platform to empower the network

As someone who will be connected to a lot of project leaders, progressive movers, you have to be mindful that our connections, the relationships we develop should bring everyone up along with us. As people who will become more connected as we are the one who will interface with a lot of people, we have to strongly consider to use these connections, to use the network we have formed to serve the applications we support. We have to bring the whole organization up with us.

With these in mind, we will bring forward a progressive collaboration at the front of our priorities. These ego checks, if we are constantly mindful about it, will inevitably make the progressive tech movement all the more sustainable and stronger.