Quick tips to becoming an agile leaderÂ
Change doesn't happen overnight, and it can be tricky to shift decades worth of training about being an effective leader. But if agile can teach us anything, it's that transformation is possibleâand that it moves from the outside in and the inside out. If you want to transform your organization into a nimble, agile operation, start by transforming yourself into the agile leader it needs.
Lead by example
One of the most effective things a leader can do to transition their company to Agile is to cultivate the agile leader within. Agile organizations are all about processes that free everyone to be leadersâand to allow everyone else to step into their best self, a leader has to demonstrate the behavior and mindset they wish their organization to adopt. For example, if you talk about the importance of embracing collaboration and work-life balance but then reward those who continually work late or fail to involve others in decision-making, your words will lose meaning, and teams will see it as a lack of commitment to the change.Â
Traditional management has often treated leaders as special and apart. But in an agile operation, people are operating much more as equals, and feedback is the name of the game. Leadership is still vital, of course. But a leader will be marked primarily by their openness and humilityâtheir ability to receive ideas from others, to sit in the discomfort of not knowing, to try and fail, and to let others excel. In an agile operation, leaders are down in it with everyone else, trying to find the best solutions. And this takes some new leadership skills.Â
Get comfortable with uncertainty
In traditional organizations, the leader comes up with a plan and implements it. The plan may have flaws, and those flaws might cost the organization in the long run, but in the meantime, there is certainty. Stability. Not so in agile organizations, in which teams test a series of hypotheses to collect data and create better processes and products.Â
To manage this approach, a leader must cultivate a deep sense of curiosity and comfort with the process itself. Instead of wanting to know the end from the beginning, try to create processes that will allow you to create clear roles that suit each person's talents, collect the best data, and funnel that data back into better work. It will help if you get to know your teammates personally so you can trust what skills and insights they're bringing to the table.
Shift toward collaboration
One mind can't know everything, but traditional management approaches put all the pressure to develop strategy, processes, and products onto one person: the executive. This model doesn't take into account the expertise and knowledge of the employees on the front lines or the customers who use the product.Â
As an executive moving toward Agile, try shifting your mindset from one of control to one of collaboration. See each employee as someone whose job gives them unique knowledge about the products and processes you've created and how those products or processes could be better. Consider how including your customer earlier in the R&D process could help you discover problems and issues before they start, saving you lots of money and the customer lots of headaches. Start noticing the benefits of a group mind, and embrace opportunities to learn from it.Â
Look for ways to make collaboration easier for your teams, especially if theyâre working remotely. Visual collaboration can bring teams togetherâfrom anywhereâto share ideas and align on projects quickly and efficiently
Foster an agile culture
It's important to lead by personal example when creating an agile cultureâa workplace that lets people know that their skills are welcome, that collaboration is encouraged, and that failure is not a bad word.
Many companies think culture is simply a matter of icebreakers and happy hours. But investing in an agile culture means creating the conditions where agility can occurâwhere people can brainstorm, collaborate, fail, and give feedback in a real, supported way.
Make space for ideas
The backbone of an agile organization is each team member's ideas. So it's critical to create a deliberate place where teams can let loose and brainstorm big ideas and innovate new solutions to old problems. This might look like chalking out an hour each week, ordering lunch, and letting people fill up a whiteboard with ideas on a theme. Or it could look like bringing in clay, markers, and toys and asking people to imagine a new way into a nagging problem they've been facing on a project. Regardless, this is about creating a regular, playful space where people can think outside the confines of a narrow task, project, or team.Â
Remember: this space is all about cross-functional collaboration! In that spirit, make sure to mix it up and invite people from different departments or projects so that people can talk across disciplines and get insight into issues and solutions they might not be exposed to in their daily interactions.
Put feedback first
Too often, people finish a big project and forget the most important part: evaluating how it went. With Agile, feedback is everything. As an agile team leader, make sure that you prioritize feedback as a critical part of your team's agile journey.Â
The data teams collect as part of their processes should be considered, then plugged back into the next iteration to make it better. Make time for teams to present the data they collected on a project when it's finished, as well as reflect more personally on their performance and what the team did well and what it could do better the next time. That way, the product and the process are constantly getting better.
Empower teams through clarity and alignmentÂ
Agile leaders play a key role in creating systems and processes that help teams become more autonomous, collaborative, and skillful workers who can bring better products to market more efficiently and effectively.Â
In traditional management, a leader's time is spent working 'in' the system. But in agile leadership, a leader's skills should be devoted to working 'on' the system, working holistically on ways to improve the system so that teams can take ownership, learn from each other, and innovate.
This is also known as a "Gardener" approach to management. Instead of telling team members what to do and how to do it, an agile manager sows seeds for alignment, helping each team member understand their role in the company's mission. This type of manager ensures each person is:
- Engaged and using their skills toward the broad group goals
- Watering the ground through clear communication, trust, and opennessÂ
- Encouraging feedback and a culture of learning from failures
- Nurturing team member growth by investing in skills development
- Helping each team member identify and work toward their goals
- Weeding by holding people accountable and firing and hiring according to company values and culture needs
Agile leaders should look for ways to communicate clearly and help team members reach a shared understanding, such as through the use of visuals. Visuals not only align teams on goals and projects quickly, but they also bring to light any roadblocks that could be slowing down progress.
In this approach, a leader is not a hotshot, nor are they the center of attention. Instead, they prepare the ground for people to flourish and cultivate their talents and skills to benefit the whole organization.
Shifting to agile leadership requires a major pivot in old ways of thinking about leadership and management. Moving away from top-down management models that promise control and stability might feel chaotic, but the benefits of agile leadership far outweigh the costs.
