Introduction to Agile Leadership:

Agile leadership is a very effective management style that involves the application of the principles of agile software development to run teams. Instead of applying the command-and-control tactics of traditional management techniques, this leadership style entirely relies on decentralized decision-making and encourages team to take more responsibility than ever.

Origins of Agile Leadership:

If you want to know the history of agile software development then it is rather short as it emerged in the year 2001. A group of developers in the year 2001 met in Utah to create the manifesto for agile software development that is known to be a set of values for developing software in a flexible and quite iterative manner.

When the agile development managed to take hold in the IT departments, the tech chiefs started to think about how this approach can be used. And not just to create software products but also to lead teams and projects more generally. When this happened, the CIOs then started to think about the importance of agile leadership and thus the era of agile leadership was started.

Why Agile Leadership spread this fast?

Well, to say that agile leadership has spread fast is not entirely true because it hasn’t this much. The CIOs might be talking a lot about the importance of an agile leadership approach for more than a decade now. But you should know that it has been a very slow growth here. But yes, this might be about to change.

Johnson Matthey CIO Paul Coby states that, “CIOs have been talking about the importance of agile methodologies for the best part of 15 years”. But with that, he also mentioned that agility is now quite crucial to supporting the business’s almost continual transformation. “They need agile IT, in the best sense of the word, to support that.”

The Nine Principles of Agile Leadership:

Agile has nine important principles which are mentioned below.

Actions speak louder than words:

Agile leadership is not just about driving and promoting change. Instead it is about being the change. Those people who tend to lead by example and actively engage in their own development t are the ones to inspire other people. And the only way to do that is through actions rather than words. Agile leaders work hard to be humble and empathetic and demonstrate virtues such as compassions, kindness, and care towards others.

Improved quality of thinking leads to improved outcomes:

Agile leaders always value high quality thinking because it always results in meaningful action. Agile leaders are always viewing problems from many different angles. They tend to take input from those closest to the problems and this also goes in a way that is closest to reality rather than only relying on electronic information.

Organizations improve through effective feedback:

When you get feedback from peers and other colleagues, it helps you become better. And that is why agile leaders lead the way by courageously soliciting meaningful and useful and timely feedback from others. With that, the agile leaders also make sure that they are responding to the suggestions made by their colleagues so as to close the feedback loop.

People require meaning and purpose to make work fulfilling:

The focus of agile leaders is to build and share a common understanding and purpose. They have to know what is in the hearts and minds of their peers and then align those value into inspired actions.

Emotion is a foundation to enhanced creativity and innovation:

Agile leaders know that emotion is a very important part of human experience and that is why whenever individuals work with their emotions, they tend to achieve more of their potential, innovation, and creativity. Thus every agile leader should be accessible, open, honest, and transparent.

Leadership lives everywhere in the organization:

Agile leadership must permeate all of the aspects of an organization or change initiative. They have to realize the leadership potential of their entire team. This will help to accelerate the organization’s ability to learn and adapt. An agile leader has to provide opportunities to their people to lead.

Leaders devolve appropriate power and authority:

Agile leaders must understand that people can only work best when they are engaged, enabled, and energized. Empowering all your people is a very important skill of an agile leader. Developing leadership skills through online courses is the safest way during this pandemic time. It is because they have to balance the ever so emerging needs and tensions of the organization.

Collaborative communities achieve more than individuals:

Agile leaders are supposed to build communities which are based on high trust and respect. Their aim is to provide those communities with everything they require to operate in the most effective possible manner. The agile leader must know how to forgive and be positive and generous. The healthy functioning of the group together along with the preservation of psychological safety will allow the agile leader to encourage learning and development and at the same time be able to balance sustained output and performance.

Great ideas can come from anywhere in the organization:

In an organization, those people who come across a problem are usually the ones to solve it more efficiently. Agile leaders open up themselves to the influence and ideas of others regardless of their position. He stops, listens, and gives time to hear the thoughts and ideas of others which help him to improve. And, that is how the agile leader encourages a continuous flow of creativity by listening to other people’s ideas and helps them understand which ideas were useful and which weren’t.

Conclusion:

So, this was everything we had to share to help you understand what agile leadership is. The agile leadership is a very effective management style which helps organizations perform even better. Therefore, understand what agile leadership is and what are its 9 important principles and don’t forget to stay safe, stay home, and never stop learning.