Today’s Morning Buzz is by Greg LeBlanc, Assistant Town Manager for the Town of Snowmass Village, Colorado. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
- Do I have a pair of binoculars in my office for birding: Yes
- Am I excited for the leaves to change colors: Yes
- What food am I craving right now: Mozzarella sticks
Leadership, we’re often told, is about vision, influence, and decision-making. Yet in many organizations (especially in local government) leadership emerges not from title or position, but from necessity. Leadership often begins in the space between authority and action, between what is needed and what is formally resourced. As I believe that most local governmenters exhibit leadership in one way or another (or at least have the capacity to do so), I jokingly call this concept in loco ducibus, or in the place of leaders.
Borrowing inspiration from in loco parentis, the legal concept of acting in place of a parent, in loco ducibus invites us to examine two recurring organizational phenomena:
- Leadership in the absence of formal authority, when employees step up because no one else does.
- Leadership in the saturation of formal authority, when employees lead despite a surplus of decision-makers.
These are not hypothetical conditions. They are daily realities for many (local government of not), especially in institutions constrained by hierarchy, tradition, or resource scarcity. And they require a different lens through which to understand leadership — not as a static role, but as a relational and adaptive practice.
Leading in the Absence of Leadership: The Leadership Vacuum
In the first interpretation of in loco ducibus, we consider the leadership vacuum moments when formal leadership is unavailable, disengaged, or indecisive. This condition is common in public institutions, particularly during periods of transition, crisis, or chronic under-staffing.
Ronald Heifetz’s theory of adaptive leadership¹ is particularly relevant here. Adaptive leadership requires individuals to lead in conditions of uncertainty, where no clear authority has the answers. In such settings, people must mobilize others to face challenges and adjust values, beliefs, and behaviors in order to thrive.
For example:
- When a city manager retires and the interim period leaves staff without clear guidance, a mid-level employee might initiate coordination meetings to keep projects moving.
- When a department head is burned out or disengaged, a team member might step up as the emotional anchor for their peers.
These are not examples of formal delegation. They are responses to a void.
In organizational terms, this is what Katz and Kahn describe as informal role assumption², where individuals adopt responsibilities beyond their formal job scope in response to system needs.
While this can be a site of innovation and resilience, it is also a potential red flag. Organizations that consistently depend on informal leadership to cover formal gaps may be signaling poor succession planning, lack of distributed decision-making, or misaligned accountability structures.
Instead of Leaders: The Saturation Effect
On the other end of the spectrum, in loco ducibus can also describe what happens when leadership is present in excess — when decision-making is centralized, authority is tightly held, and initiative is constrained by red tape.
In these contexts, employees lead not in the absence of authority, but despite it.
This dynamic reflects what French and Raven termed referent and expert power³, forms of influence based on trust, credibility, and perceived competence, rather than formal authority. It also aligns with the concept of emergent leadership⁴, where leadership is conferred by peers based on behavior rather than rank.⁵
Examples might include:
- A policy analyst who pilots a new approach under the radar because the official process is too slow to respond to real-time needs.
- A team that develops informal communication norms to counteract siloed or top-down leadership practices.
- A front-line worker who becomes the go-to problem solver in the community, not because it’s their role, but because they are trusted.
This kind of leadership may not be sanctioned, but it is often essential to organizational learning and innovation. As Mary Parker Follett wrote nearly a century ago, “leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led.”⁶
In environments dominated by managerial-ism or overly rigid hierarchy, emergent leadership often becomes the only form of effective change-making. However, it can also become a form of quiet resistance, and thus fills the space left by organizational paralysis or distrust.
Implications for Practice
Whether it arises in the absence or the excess of formal authority, in loco ducibus leadership shares a common root: responsiveness to organizational need. It is a behavior, rather than a role, and a set of choices, rather than a function of title.
For formal leaders, this raises important questions:
- Are you creating space for others to lead, or occupying all available space?
- Are people stepping up because you’ve empowered them — or because you’ve disappeared?
- Is informal leadership being supported — or silently exploited?
And for those leading from within the system:
- Are you aware of the leadership you’re practicing?
- Are your contributions visible to those in power?
- What do you need in order to sustain your leadership without burning out?
As Schein reminds us in his work on organizational culture, both leadership and culture are intertwined. The behavior of informal leaders shapes organizational norms just as much as policies or mission statements. To lead in loco ducibus is, in many ways, to define what the organization actually is in practice.⁷
In loco ducibus reminds us that leadership is not always where the organizational chart says it is. Sometimes it’s where the work gets done, where the gaps get closed, and where someone says, “I’ll handle it,” not because they must, but because they can.
When we start noticing where informal leadership is happening, either to cover for absence or to work around excess, we can begin designing organizations that support, reward, and ultimately integrate those acts into the core of how we function. If we want leadership to thrive, it cannot be treated as property. Leadership must be cultivated as a shared capacity.
References
¹Heifetz, R. A. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Harvard University Press.
²Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). Wiley.
³French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). University of Michigan.
⁴Hollander, E. P. (1974). Processes of leadership emergence. Journal of Contemporary Business.
⁵Kruse, K. (2013). What is leadership? Forbes.
⁶Follett, M. P. (1924). Creative experience. Longmans, Green and Co.
⁷Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.