Talk by Smoking Brains about what agile leadership means and some of the basic you need to know as an agile leader.

1. Introduction to
Agile Leadership

2. We build teams that excel
Working at all levels of the organization: strategic, teams,
individual skills

3. “Agile” leadership

4. Leadership at the center

5. Leadership in agile?
What we want?
● Autonomous teams
● Self organized teams
● Servant leaders:
○ Scrum Masters
○ Product owners?
● Predictability in their
behaviours

6. Leadership in agile?
What we want?
● Autonomous teams
● Self organized teams
● Servant leaders:
○ Scrum Masters
○ Product owners?
● Predictability in their
behaviours
What we sometimes get?
● Chaos
● Frustration
● Under performance
● Burntout (personal and team)
● No consistency

7. Example: What are the expectations?
What are the expectations for each:
● The Product Owner
● Scrum Master
● The Team
● The Stakeholders
● The Agile Coach

8. Leadership
A bird's eye view

9. Experiment time!
A taste of leadership...
● 8 volunteers!
● 7 grab a sheet of paper and close your eyes! (Follow my instructions!)
● 1 is going to be my right hand.

11. Experiment time!
Another taste of leadership.
● Split in teams of 4 - 5 people!

12. Some questions:
Comment with your groups:
● Who is a leader?
● What makes a good leader?
● Is it something you are born with?
● Is a boss a “de facto” leader?
● Can there be more than one leader in team or group?
● Is someone who uses coercion or force a leader?
● Are we all leaders?

13. What is leadership?

14. A definition
Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes
the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.

15. Core theories of leadership

16. Leadership as Traits
Assumptions:
● People are born with
inherited traits.
● Some traits are particularly
suited to leadership.
● People who make good
leaders have the right (or
sufficient) combination of
traits.

17. Leadership as Behaviours
Assumptions:
● Leaders can be made, rather
than are born.
● Successful leadership is based
in definable, learnable
behavior.

18. Leadership as Contingency
Assumptions:
● The leader's ability to lead is
contingent upon various
situational factors, including
the leader's preferred style,
the capabilities and behaviors
of followers and also various
other situational factors.

19. Leadership as Power
Assumptions:
● Power is the ability to get
others to change their
behavior even if they do not
wish to do so.

20. Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman:
Author, psychologist, and science journalist. Wrote the bestseller
Emotional Intelligence and has received numerous awards including:
● Career Achievement award for journalism from the American
Psychological Association
● Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science in recognition of his efforts to communicate the
behavioral sciences to the public
● Klingenstein Educational Leadership Award
● Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award winner for his
December 2013 article “The Focused Leader”

21. 6 Leadership styles

22. The 6 leadership styles

23. The 6 leadership styles
1. Share some examples of this leadership styles that you have seen.
2. Discuss with your group:
● Which one is the best?
● Which one is your dominant style?
● Which one is your weakest style?
● Which style do you think a leader in agile needs?

24. The 6 leadership styles

25. There is no silver bullet
Great leaders know how to use
each one of them depending on the
context.

26. How leadership influences results?
Comment with your groups:
● What is the link between team results and leadership?

28. How leadership influences results?
Team climate:
● About 30% of the impact in the organizational performance comes from
having a healthy team climate
● Team climate is a combination of motivation, behaviour and leadership
styles (clarity, commitment, rewards, etc.)
● Leaders can shape that climate by using different leadership styles (about
70% impact)

29. How leadership influences results

31. Unilateral control
mindset

33. Unilateral control mindset
Values:
● Be right
● Act rational
● Don’t lose
● Minimize expression of
negative feelings
Assumptions:
● I understand the situation; those who
disagree, don’t
● I am right; those who disagree are
wrong
● I have pure motives; those who disagree
have questionable motives
● My feelings and behaviours are justified
● I am not contributing to the problem

34. Unilateral control mindset
Behaviours:
1. I state my views without asking for others views and vice versa
2. Withhold relevant information
3. I speak in general terms and don’t agree in what important words mean
4. I keep my reasoning private; don’t ask others about their reasoning
5. Focus on positions, not interests
6. Act on untested assumptions and inferences as if they were true
7. Control de conversation
8. Avoid, ease into, or save face in difficult issues

35. Unilateral control mindset
Results:
1. Lower performance, longer implementation, increased costs, less
innovation
2. Lower commitments, decreased trust, reduced learning, greater
defensiveness, etc.
3. Reduced motivation, decreased satisfaction, increased stress, limited
development opportunities, etc.

36. Common learning
mindset

38. Common learning mindset
Values:
● Transparency
● Curiosity
● Informed choice
● Accountability
● Compassion
Assumptions:
● I have information; so do other people
● Each of us sees things others don’t
● People may disagree with me and still
have pure motives
● Differences are opportunities for
learning
● I may be contributing to the problem

39. Common learning mindset
Behaviours:
1. I state views and ask genuine questions
2. Share all relevant information
3. Use specific examples and agree on what important words mean
4. Explain reasoning and intent
5. Focus on interest, not positions
6. Test assumptions and inferences
7. Jointly design next steps
8. Discuss undiscussable issues

40. Common learning mindset
Results:
1. Higher quality, lower implementation time, decreased costs, more
innovation
2. Greater commitments, increased trust, increased learning, less
defensiveness, productive conflict, appropriate dependencies on others,
etc.
3. Increased motivation, increased satisfaction, decreased stress, enriched
development opportunities, etc.

41. Which one fits best?

42. Experiment time!!
Which one are you?
1. Grab two post-it notes.
2. Write what is your mindset on one.
3. Write what the proportion between mindsets that you see around you is.
For examples, 50% - 50%.
4. Swap your post-its with someone else.

43. Closing up
(recap)

44. Leadership at the center

45. What are the characteristics of agile leadership?
Agile leadership is flexible. It adapts to
the situation and focuses on creating
high performance teams and a
healthy organizational climate that
helps drive results.

46. Quick recap
Leadership is essential if we want a successful agile organization.
It is not a one size fits all… The context is important therefore adapting styles
and plan to the person, is key.
The relationship between leadership and team results.
We saw two models that can help us understand what is at the core of agile
leadership.
● Unilateral Control mindset
● Common learning mindset

48. Thanks ;)
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