Absentee Leadership: The Worst Kind of ManagerAbsentee leaders are managers who are physically present but psychologically absent. They are incompetent and disengaged, to the extent that they don't support their teams adequately. If you have an absentee manager (and don’t have the luxury of seeking another position), here's how you can try to handle the situation.
Is Your Culture about Responsibility or Blame?When things go wrong, it can be helpful to understand what happened and who was involved. However, all too often organizations (and the managers within) confuse responsibility with assigning blame. The former is essential for improvement. The latter works against an effective, collaborative, productive culture.
Superior Leaders Ask the Tough QuestionsInspiring quotes can be motivating, but there's more to good leadership. New leaders may feel compelled to find clever and memorable things to say, when in reality, they should probably focus less on what they’re saying and more on what they’re hearing. The best leaders ask good questions and listen to the answers.
Coaching Senior Management to Be AgileEmbracing an agile mindset isn’t always easy, and it can be especially difficult for senior managers who spent most of their careers working in more traditional development methodologies. By trying to speak the same language and demonstrating successful self-organization, teams can help senior management become agile.
Effectively Measuring Agile LeadershipCulture drives performance, and agile leaders set a team's culture, so leaders should be measured at how effectively they’re doing just that. The challenge is, what might that look like? Here’s an idea for a four-quadrant measurement approach for leaders' organizational and personal effectiveness in agile contexts.
Making DevOps Evolution HappenIt takes effort to evolve an organization’s culture, processes, and technology to optimize performance for a DevOps environment, and it all comes down to the people. Large-scale mobilization requires a focus on people at all levels, empowering them to discover and make the changes that will help them most. Here's how.
Transforming a Team of Agile Skeptics into AgilistsCoaching an agile-skeptical team demands a personalized approach. Agile introduces a different way of working and thinking, and leaders must find a way to overcome resistance and foster a collaborative culture. Take these three steps to move toward achieving an agile mindset and realizing the benefits of agile.
Providing Value as a Leader: More Than Just Being the BossAs a leader, your job is not to be the boss and check on every task, but to provide value to your team, helping them grow, learn to fix things, and make decisions without you. One of the best ways to provide value is by asking questions. Questions clarify expectations, confirm understanding, and build relationships.
