Learn How to Show Agile Leadership by Getting Curious
Questions are the answer.
Moving from being a manager to being a leader is crucial in today’s Agile environment. The success of our Agile teams depends on it. I have written about the need for Agile Leaders and the values of an Agile Leader before. But today, I have a specific scenario to dive into.
Recently, I heard this statement by a manager:
“It would be so much easier if I could tell the team what to do and how to do it.”
— Manager in an Agile Transformation
This is a typical reaction to the difficulty in supporting self-organizing behavior. While it seems appealing and less risky to direct a team on their every move, it is not. If you treat your team like robots, you will get robots. And this does not enable Agility.
When you, the manager, are in the decision-making hot seat, your team will be less effective. Every decision you make saps self-organizing behavior from the team.
When you own all decisions, the weight is on your shoulders alone. And you will not always be there with the team when they need a decision to be made. This can lead to a bottleneck.
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the…
