Leadership refined

One of my favorite questions to ask when I was interviewing with companies was why they switched or wanted to switch to Agile. What problems were they trying to solve?

At one of the interviews the Program Director that was interviewing me answered:

“It gave me visibility so I could micro-manage the teams better. The teams need that sort of oversight.”

I didn’t take that role.

Good agile teams are self-managing. They take initiative; they learn from mistakes, they unblock themselves without requiring intervention. It’s a far cry from being micro-managed. In fact – I’ve seen situations where the teams were successful in spite of poor management.

Unfortunately that success just reinforces the bad managers behavior.

The concept of agile scares a lot of mid-level managers.  Some got to their positions with a very direct management style.

If you’re at an organization that still has an “old boys club”, It is usually one of the toughest things to change when trying to do an agile transformation.

If someone has been rewarded and promoted throughout their career for behaviors that are now disruptive to the team and productivity – How do you change those behaviors?

Being able to guide them through their new roles and responsibilities will be crucial to your success, as they will likely be the loudest and vehement detractors if you don’t get them onside. Despite my dislike of mechanical agile, I find that being very prescriptive helps with the transition for these personalities.

It’s easy to assume bad intent when you run into these situations – but think of it a different way. Do they have the necessary skills? Do they know how to lead and manage any other way?

You may find it’s not a problem of motivation – it’s a problem of skill, and all skills can be learned. Even sailing.