Agile Podcast: Agile Coaches' Corner

Ep. 157

Podcast Ep. 157: What is Agile Leadership? with Ola Tunde and Lucy Lin

May 4, 2023

Agile

Episode Description:

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by his colleagues at AgileThought, Ola Tunde and Lucy Lin. In this episode, they explore the true meaning of agile leadership. They dive deep into the core of an Agile Leader, someone who can foster a safe environment where a team feels free to speak up, innovate, and take action. Dan, Ola, and Lucy discuss the value of balancing the left and the right sides of the Agile Manifesto, as well as providing strategies for leaders to become more agile. This episode contains lots of great analogies, real examples, and valuable book recommendations in the field of agile leadership.

Key Takeaways

  • Agile thinking needs to pursue the understanding of what motivates individuals
    • A team must deliver value together in a different way, even though each individual is motivated differently
    • Motivate people prioritizing autonomy, mastery, and purpose
  • Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality
    • A manager drives people to deliver work with the intention of intimidating them to deliver value. On the contrary, an agile leader inspires people in order to deliver value
    • Inspiration vs. drive; leaders are the ones who inspire others while managers drive people
    • There are assumptions that consider that leaders know all the answers and that they are who give good orders, but good leaders are those who let the decisions happen where the information is
  • Centralized vs. decentralized leadership
    • There are certain practices that are better centralized, but when the practices involve creativity and innovation, decentralized leadership is of more value
    • A centralized environment is driven by command and control, no innovation is welcomed in this kind of scenario
    • In a decentralized environment, the team is allowed to make decisions and fosters innovation
    • Agile leadership happens when the leader can celebrate the work of the team
    • An agile leader doesn’t blindly trust a team but encourages teams to create transparency to what is happening
  • Left and right sides of the agile statement: There is a need for structure but there is also a part that needs to welcome change
    • Agile leadership marinates both left and right together for people to be able to deliver more
    • Embracing changes is a key aspect of an agile leader
  • How can leaders foster an environment where teams feel free to speak up? 
    • A safe environment is where people can be free to speak up and discuss and they won’t be punished or criticized for their opinions
    • A leaders must be able to bring people from opposite views together, always manifesting and being open to opposing views
  • How do you know if you are an agile leader?
    • You are not the boss, you are the servant
    • A leader must be ready to sacrifice for the team
    • An agile leader is humble, coachable, teachable, and has the ability to inspire others to action

Share this content

Speakers

Dan Neumann

Principal Enterprise Coach

Dan Neuman is the Director of the US Transformation and Coaching practice in the Agility guild. He coaches organizations to transform the way they work to achieve their desired business outcomes.

With more than 25 years of experience, Dan Neumann is an experienced Agile Coach with a deep knowledge of Agility at the team and organizational levels. He focuses on achieving business outcomes by shifting both mindset and practices, resulting in a disciplined, yet practical approach to solving problems.

Related

Blog

10 Things a Java Developer Should Learn These Days
We are halfway into the year and, looking back at what the last 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic left us, we can say that the advancements on technology and all the different languages, frameworks and development tools have not disappointed us and even in many cases have overtaken us. It doesn’t seem that long since Java 8 was released more than 8 years ago and, although it is true that today the latest version is Java 18, we must remember that there are still many companies stuck with Java 8 and even a few with Java 1.4 a 1.6 and a few other legacy frameworks.Because of this great advance in programming languages and frameworks in recent years, many programmers could feel overwhelmed due to the large number of updates that we are exposed to in our industry. However, we have begun to see very marked patterns in different industries, and we believe it is important to mention what are the 10 things that every Java programmer should learn.

Read More

6 min read

August 25, 2022

Java

Blog

Managed Services
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) has become, along with people, the spine of the operations of almost every organization. No matter the business you are running, technology is now what supports the entire company operation.When technology started being an important component of organizations, it was somehow limited to some computers running accounting software and any other tool specific to the business. Companies used to hire “IT guys” with enough knowledge to fix PC issues and skills to learn about a couple of applications to assist the end users whenever necessary. The IT department was, in many cases, a small team of two or three guys who used to report to the general manager or any other manager who could or not have IT knowledge.

Read More

7 min read

August 16, 2022

IT

Blog

Succeeding at Cost Takeout – Improving Cost Management Strategy
The cost takeout is a strategic initiative that can help your company become more efficient. The goal of the initiative is to determine ways to reduce expenses without sacrificing quality, speed or customer satisfaction. A successful cost takeout requires an accurate understanding of where costs arise in your business process and how those costs can be reduced through new technologies. In this guide, we’ll look at some of the most common drivers of costs in IT departments and explain how you can identify them within your own organization’s processes.Cost drivers are the factors that cause your costs to increase. They’re different for every business, but you can identify them by asking yourself: “What makes my costs go up?”

Read More

10 min read

February 7, 2023

Efficiency