Leadership @ Spotify

Apr 23

Spotify offers plenty of resources to support lifelong learning, which I love about the company. One standout in-person course is the Leadership@Spotify program. This intensive training helps us strengthen our leadership skills with real-world exercises and provides a refresher on different business areas. It’s a great way to discuss common challenges we face as managers across the company.

Leadership@Spotify focuses on our Manager Manifesto behaviors and is mandatory for all managerial levels, including directors. This ensures consistent leadership practices across the board. In a large organization with complex business units, it's easy to work in silos. Programs like this help us learn what our peers are doing to build teams that align with Spotify’s philosophy, fostering a unified approach to leadership.

I completed my Leadership@Spotify training in March 2024, just shy of my two-year mark with the company. After experiencing two major RIFFs and numerous structural and strategic changes, the training came at the perfect time, grounding me for the next phase of my journey at Spotify.

Here are my key insights, distilled for managers and leaders with a holistic approach so you can apply it to your day-to-day.

When working in a world of complexity & chaos (often the case for many fast growing companies) - how might managers assess where they sit on the scale?

In a traditional management approach, stability is achieved through a structured process of change, followed by a return to stability. Leaders and managers operate with a sense of predictability and maintain control over outcomes. This approach emphasizes a “big picture” perspective, with a clear separation between thinking and action, means and ends, and tasks from processes. Alignment within the organization is prioritized, encouraging shared values and leaving politics at the door.

In contrast, complexity science views organizations as never truly at rest, experiencing “one damned thing after another.” Here, predictability is blended with unpredictability, and there is no single locus of control; outcomes emerge from the collective actions of everyone involved. The focus shifts to both local interactions and the broader patterns they create, linking means and ends in a more dynamic way. This approach embraces differences, enabling constraints, and acknowledges the influence of politics and power in shaping outcomes.

TLDR: n today’s complexity, leading an organisation means making decisions based on both. Predictable and unpredictable at the same time. Polarities are not problems. They are not solvable. They are points of view. They need harmony.

When talking about chaos and complexity to our teams…

Context: We played these two line of questioning in person with pairs of coaching teams and the responses from the solutions-focused line of questioning was far more productive, positive and reaching solutions faster.

Problems-Solving Questioning

Tell me about the problem
What other problems is this problem causing?
How did it get like this?
Where does the fault lie?
Why will this be really difficult to overcome?
Why does this keep happening?

Solutions-Focused Questioning

Describe Future Perfect of this situation
On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the Future Perfect, where are you now?
What’s helped you to achieve so much already?
What would take you a small step (say, one point) higher?
What would be the first tiny signs of progress?
How will you celebrate when you’ve achieved the next step?

TLDR: Not ground breaking but good reminder: solution-focused, an approach to complexity.

Think Ideal future
Create scaling
Articulate what is going well
Map the small steps
Celebrate the wins

So what is a high performing team? how can we fast track our teams there?

**To sum, teams succeed when:**
Members **share the same vision** and find the proposed **goals clear** and **relevant.**
**Roles** are **accepted** and **understood** by every member.
Every member has its **needs and expectations met.**
**Communication is open** between all members and **uses feedback regularly** to improve its effectiveness and productivity.
Members **spend time making decisions** based on effective strategies.
The **leadership style matches the team’s development level**.
Periods of conflict arise frequently, but they are brief. The group **has effective conflict management strategies.**

Heres some more detail on the graphic:

Dependency & Inclusion: In the first stage of group development, new relationships are established. Individuals are primarily concerned about feeling included, and they are usually reluctant to express different opinions to avoid conflict and potentially be rejected. The group assumes consensus about the initial established goals, even though they are not clear for all members. At this stage, members are highly dependent on a directing leadership that helps give structure and decisions.
Counter-Dependency & Fight: As members start feeling more included and safe inside the group, natural disagreements emerge. In the second stage, members question what role they play and if the team is considering their points of view. Every team needs to experience this crucial phase to build cohesion and trust among members. It is a sign of group progression as it demands a unified vision about the guiding values and goals that need to be achieved. Leadership at this stage needs to facilitate an open discussion to help the group resolve arising conflicts.
Trust & Structure: If the group manages to reach a consensus and work through the previous stage, cooperation increases. The third stage is where roles and tasks are adjusted, and the goals are clear to every member. Even though conflict still occurs, the group manages it much more effectively, and communication becomes more task-oriented.
Performance & Productivity: The fourth stage is where teams are the most efficient and productive. Cooperation is robust, and there is a high level of support between members of the group. Tasks are a collective responsibility rather than an individual responsibility. Conflicts are managed most efficiently, as feedback is constant and effective.
Termination: Even though this is not a development stage itself, it is a vital step in any team. Teams can end their collaboration at any point, but the members must perceive a sense of closure, and that feedback is received to extract learnings from the working experience.

Every team is different, and this process doesn’t work linearly. For example, groups might spend more time at some stages, get stuck, and regress before moving forward.