Module #13: Leadership

We have addressed some specific roles that have an impact on Agile teams, but leadership can be demonstrated by anyone within the organization at various times and for various reasons.

Organizational Structures: How leadership is expressed in organizations can have a great deal to do with the structure and culture of the organization. This topic covers

• forms of organizational structures,
• hierarchical command and control,
• flat organizations,
• holacracy, and
• communication and value flow.

Initiating Leadership:  It is important to understand what supports leadership, how it can differ from exerting influence, and how authority affects it. This topic covers

• what is Agile leadership,
• supporting group discussion/interaction,
• power vs leadership,
• influence and an influence model,
• leadership vs management,
• authority and its impact,
• levels of delegation,
• applying leadership, and
• situational leadership.

Servant Leadership: While the concept is a long-standing one, the term itself appeared in 1970 and began to take on broader consideration in the 90’s as approaches which led to the Agile Manifesto began to be described. This topic covers

• qualities of servant leadership,
• encouraging team growth,
• support for collective wisdom,
• understanding and building trust,
• the manager as team facilitator, and
• making yourself unnecessary.

 Module #14: Coaching

While the word “coaching” in an Agile context usually refers to someone with a formal role as an Agile team or enterprise coach, anyone can apply coaching concepts to support and help improve the way others approach their work.

Team Coaching: As a formal coach there are some basic ideas which should guide how such coaching is conducted. This topic covers

• what is Agile coaching,
• skills of an Agile coach,
• being a role model for agile values and principles, and
• coaching “contracts,” “stances,” and “alliances.”

Motivation: The fifth Agile principle starts with “Build projects around motivated individuals”, emphasizing the importance of individual motivation on Agile success. This topic covers

• what motivates us,
• three key motivation concepts,
• task switching’s impact, and
• SWOT analysis.

Self-Organization and Culture: For Agile teams to succeed, the organization’s culture needs to support team ability to learn self-organization and management. This topic covers

• aligned and unaligned self-organization,
• self-organization implications, and
• elements and indicators of culture.

Self-Awareness: To coach others effectively, it is important to understand you own strengths and weaknesses. This topic covers

• emotional intelligence (EI) and why it matters,
• the four domains of EI,
• a purpose alignment model,
• various self-awareness assessment tools, and
• the benefits of mindfulness.

Powerful Questions: Since a key aspect of coaching is to guide others to discover their own solutions rather than telling them how you would do it, learning to ask more than tell is an important skill. This topic covers

• effective listening,
• what are powerful questions, and
• asking tough questions.