When I joined Control4 in 2018, it took up to four months to ship a new feature in the Control4 Smart Home OS, a full manual test pass took upwards of eight weeks, and most engineers couldn’t spell “unit test.” Plenty of people inside the company hated this, and a few were perfectly happy with it; one engineer literally told me, “I’m an engineer, I don’t write tests.” My direct reports and I eventually took the rather dramatic step of getting rid of all manual testers, either by converting them into software engineers or by helping them find new roles elsewhere. Within months customers noticed we were releasing faster with higher quality, and the team that builds the Control4 UI components moved to a weekly launch cadence that could go hourly if needed.
I told the change-management side of that story in How to be a Secret Agent (of Change). What I didn’t write about is why I was willing to make that call in my first year at a much smaller public company than I was used to. It was a bet. I had seen the pattern before, but I wasn’t 100% sure it fit Control4, and eliminating manual testing was a one-way door I couldn’t walk back if I was wrong. I made the call anyway. I was acting like a volunteer.
In 2022 I wrote Be A Volunteer, crediting my mentor Chris Phillips with the idea. The gist was that a leader who realizes they’ll be fine financially, that the company doesn’t care about them, and that they know the Right Thing to do can act like a volunteer. I’ve kept chewing on those conditions since, and I now ready to write them down more sharply.
A volunteer is a leader who does the work only because it is Right (for the customer, for the team, and for the world) and who could walk away tomorrow without fear.
Three things have to be true for a leader to get there. I call them the three confidences.
1. Resume Confidence
“I know I can find another job if I quit or am fired tomorrow.” This one is a mirror test. Can a leader look in the mirror and honestly say, “I’m smart, I’ve demonstrated I’m capable, I have the experience, my resume shows it, and my network is strong”? If so, they’re confident they can land a new role, and the job they have stops holding them hostage.
2. Financial Confidence
“My family and I know we can go months with no pay.” There’s no hard rule on how many months, because it depends on seniority, family situation, and more, but the operative words are “my family and I,” because that confidence has to be shared at home.
3. Principle Confidence
“I am clear on the right way to do things because I have written my principles down, I strive to live them personally, and I’m mastering the skills principled leaders master.”
The first two roughly match the first two conditions in the original post; the third I undersold in 2022, when I described it as simply knowing the Right Thing to do. Knowing isn’t enough, because a principle that lives only in my head bends the first time someone with a big title leans on it. I write tenets for my personal life as well as for teams (Serve at Civilization Scale is one of mine), and writing them down, debating them with the people I’m close to, and then trying to live them is what turned vague conviction into something I could lean on under pressure. If you want a head start, the Tenets app will draft a set with you.
When all three confidences are in place, leaders get bold. They push through the corporate bullsh*t that everyone else has learned to route around, and they stop asking permission to do what’s obviously right for customers. Impostor syndrome loses its grip, too. Volunteers also get remarkably good at leading without authority, because people can tell when a leader is pushing for something because it’s Right rather than because it protects their job.
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” (Anaïs Nin)
The three confidences are how a leader funds that courage ahead of time, so it’s already in the bank when the moment arrives.
I’d be interested in hearing which of the three has been hardest for you to build, and whether there’s a fourth I’m missing. Let me know in the comments.