What is my role as senior leader?
What is my role as senior leader?
The 100-Day Challenge team operates outside the existing organisational accountability structures. It is commissioned by a group of leaders who typically represent multiple organisations. So, the team is accountable to this group of leaders.
But we all know how hard it is to have multiple people to be accountable to. This is why, in 100-Day Challenges, we ask the group of leaders that commissioned the 100-Day Challenge team to elect one or two representatives to provide a more focused point of accountability for the team. We refer to these representatives as “Team Mentors”.
The Ambassadors, by contrast, were not elected by the leaders. They do not represent the leaders. Their role is to guide and support the 100-Day Team and to advise the Mentors.
So there is an accountability relationship between the 100-Day Challenge Team and Team Mentors. The team, or team leaders, “report” to the Mentors. However, it is important to note that one of the reasons that 100-Day Challenges are so impactful is that they prescribe a very unique way to handle power within and between organisations. So even though Mentors are in a position of power vis-a-vis the team, 100-Day Challenges are an opportunity for Mentors to practise “power with” and “power through” the team versus “power over” the team.
This is what we refer to as leading from a place of curiosity and “confident humility”.
So the two roles are different, and both are important and needed. More often than not, both Ambassadors and Mentors provide support to the team (and especially the team leaders).
However, at times, the Ambassador will advise and coach the Mentor to play a heavy-handed role with the team if, for example, team members start deprioritising their commitment to the goal they set for themselves. This heavy-handed role cannot be played by the Ambassador, as the team does not report to the Ambassador, but it can be played, if needed, by the Mentors.
