Agile Leadership Style
Charles Darwin had once commented that “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Agility means the capability of rapidly and efficiently adapting to changes and recently, agility has been applied in the context of software development, agile enterprise, and agile leadership. Agile leaders play an important, even essential, role in scaling agility in an organization. Understand how being an agile leader helps in effectively catalyzing organizational change.
What is Agile Leadership?
Adaptability; the ability to change (or be changed) to fit new circumstances and Agility; the capability to rapidly and efficiently adapt to change, is a crucial skill for leaders. It is the art of being flexible under the influence of rapidly changing external conditions. Being an agile leader means being flexible, responsive to change, and willing to learn and adopt new ways, leading to effectively survive and succeed in the complex modern competitive business environment. People who score high on the adaptability and agility competency are able to deal more positively with the change, and they are able to adapt their approach to changing needs and shift their priorities.
Another definition for “Agile Leadership” is the application of the agile principles to the field of leadership. It is encompassing the processes, tools, and rules of Agile to manage teams and projects and develop new leadership paradigms to deliver better results.
Agile Leadership Model:
Agile leaders are leaders who are able to reflect, see possibilities, and reframe their thinking constantly. The traditional Agile Scrum Model encompasses the organization of the project team, roles and responsibilities of the team members, the artifacts, and the rules under which the project team operates to deliver expectations. Agile Leadership includes the work environment as well as the specific leadership abilities expected from the managers and stakeholders to make the project team successful.
According to the Agile Leadership Model, there are five levels of leadership agility:
1. Expert Level (solving key problems):
The expert is more tactical and has a problem-solving orientation. Believes a leader’s power depends upon the expertise and positional authority, acts as more of a supervisor than a manager, and usually too caught up in details to lead in a strategic manner.
2. Achiever Level (accomplishing key outcomes):
The Achiever is more strategic and outcome-oriented, believes that power comes not only from authority and expertise but also from motivating others, operates as a full-fledged manager, and will often accept feedback, if helpful in achieving desired outcomes.
3. Catalyst Level (mobilizing new endeavors and breakthroughs):
The Catalyst is visionary with facilitative orientation, believes that leaders articulate an innovative, inspiring vision and empower people to transform the vision into reality, acts as team leader and facilitator to create a highly participative team, welcomes the open exchange of views on difficult issues, empowers direct reports and uses team development as a vehicle for leadership development.
4. Co-Creator Level (realizing a shared purpose):
The Cocreator is oriented toward shared purpose and collaboration, believes leadership is ultimately a service to others, develops key stakeholder relationships, may create companies or units where corporate responsibility is an integral practice, develops collaborative leadership teams, where members feel fully responsible not only for their own areas but also for the organization they collectively manage.
5. Synergist Level (evoking new and audacious possibilities):
The Synergist is holistic oriented, experiences leadership as participation in a palpable sense of life purpose that benefits others while serving as a vehicle for personal transformation maintains a deep, empathetic awareness of conflicting stakeholder interests, including their own, capable of moving fluidly between various team leadership styles, can amplify or shape group energy dynamics to bring about mutually beneficial results, cultivates a present-centered awareness that augments external feedback and supports a strong, subtle connection with others, even during challenging conversations.
Characteristics of Agile Leaders:
1. They use a democratic approach to management which helps them in enforcing change to the behaviors
2. Provides empowerment to the team members and let them determine how to accomplish their tasks, are focused, and always keep track of the timelines
3. Demonstrate a greater openness to ideas and innovations; applies standard procedures more flexibly
4. Defines the desired vision and continuously adapt to changing situations, unexpected demands, and changing strategies
5. Acts as a change agent within the organization and have the ability to deal with situations they have never dealt with before
6. Makes concerted effort to understand people of different cultures and develops cultural adaptability
7. Are willing to get out of one’s comfort zone and learn continuously, keep upgrading their skills
8. Challenges the status quo; Are open to new ideas
9. Uses adaptable, methodical and organized approach to problem-solving; are fast and effective problem solvers and tend to solve when faced with new and challenging situations
Books for reading/References:
Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastering for Anticipating and Initiating Change by Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs (2007)
Related Links
You May Also Like
-
Crisis leadership is a very important part of leading in today's world. The skills a leader needs in order to guide people during a crisis are different from the skills needed to help a group grow. Are you a good crisis leader? What is your leadership style in case of a business crisis situation? A business crisis can test the strongest of leaders, read this article to explore how to ensure you’re ready to take action and weather the storm when one strikes you.
-
What are the functions which a leader does to establish as a leader? What are the activities undertaken by them to become great leaders, rather revolutionary leaders? The most important tasks done by a leader in all situations are defining the vision, mission, and goals, leading the team, administrative functions, motivating followers, decision making and conflict resolution, and continuous development.
-
“Level 5 Leadership”, this term was coined by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” and it is all about achieving "Greatness" as a leader. This article will explain what we mean by Level 5 Leadership and what the characteristics of a Level 5 leader are. What it takes to achieve greatness as a leader, and what are the steps and strategies that one can use to move up to this top level of leadership.
-
Laissez-faire is a style of leadership that affords the group members a great deal of independence. Tasks are delegated to the group members and they are responsible to see the project through to fruition. Research has shown that this style of leadership leads to the lowest levels of productivity. This article explains this style and covers the implications of having a hands-off approach and the situations where this style could be effective.
-
Power is the ability to exercise influence or control over others. Leadership involves authority and it is very important for leaders to understand what type of power they're using. The 5 Types of Power in Leadership are Coercive power, expert power, legitimate power, referent power, and reward power. Authority is the right to command and extract obedience from others. It comes from the organization and it allows the leader to use power.
-
Collaborative leadership is all about collaborative problem-solving and decision-making or can also be defined as the leadership of a collaborative effort. . The term started to appear in the mid-1990s in response to the formation of long term public-private partnerships to rebuild public infrastructure. Learn how you can use principles of collaborative leadership to enhance your leadership skills for being an effective leader.
-
Authoritarian Leadership Style
Although generally considered as a traditional, outdated, and non-preferred style of leadership, the autocratic style still can be used effectively in certain situations. It is a leadership style characterized by individual absolute control over a group. If you work for an autocratic leader, your job is usually to do what you're told. Learn more about this style and situations where this could be an effective style to use and when to avoid this type of approach. Analyze the characteristics of this style to evaluate if your followers consider you an authoritarian leader!
-
There are four characteristics of leadership that help us to understand the character of leadership as a concept. 1. Leadership is a process, 2. Leadership involves influence, 3. Leadership always occurs in a group context and 4. Leadership involves goal attainment. These are the four components that make up the character of the 'leadership' term and help us to define the leadership concept. All of these components of leadership have common characteristics.
-
Authentic leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes building the leader's legitimacy through honest relationships with followers which value their input and are built on an ethical foundation. The authentic leader acts upon his or her values and beliefs, and inspires others to do the same, is committed to know and develop oneself. Are you committed to developing yourself; know your motivations and the purpose of your leadership? Read this article to know more about authentic leadership style and discovering your authentic self.
-
A good leadership style is something that every effective leader must have in order to succeed, but identifying what that entails or does not entails might be difficult to understand. Most of the research on leadership focuses on the exemplary, best practices, and positive attributes of effective and successful leaders. This article talks about a new approach to learn leadership using lessons from bad leadership. That is the lessons to be learned by examining leaders who have not effectively exercised their power, authority, or influence.
