From Traditional to Agile Leadership - Why and How?

“In a world of disruptive digital business models, augmented workforces, flattened organizations, and an ongoing shift to team-based work practices, organizations are challenging their leaders to step up and show the way forward. CEOs are being pressured to take a position on social issues; C-suite executives are being asked to work more collaboratively across functions; line leaders must learn to operate in networks of teams. But our research shows that while organizations expect new leadership capabilities, they are still largely promoting traditional models and mindsets—when they should be developing skills and measuring leadership in ways that help leaders effectively navigate greater ambiguity, take charge of rapid change, and engage with external and internal stakeholders.” Deloitte 2019 Global Human Capital Trends

Leadership vs Management

This is the third article in this series on Agile People Management. The second article is “From Rigid Hierarchy to Reconfigurable Organisations – Why and How”. In this article we focus on Leadership.

There is, of course, a difference between Leadership and Management, and it is generally acknowledged that Leaders are not necessarily Managers, and Managers aren’t necessarily Leaders. According to Forbes, there are 9 differences between Leadership and Management.  These are:

1. Leaders create a vision, managers create goals
2. Leaders are change agents, managers maintain the status quo
3. Leaders are unique, managers copy
4. Leaders take risks, managers control risk
5. Leaders are in it for the long haul, managers think short-term
6. Leaders grow personally, managers rely on existing, proven skills
7. Leaders build relationships, managers build systems and processes
8. Leaders coach, managers direct
9. Leaders create fans, managers have employees.

In Agile environments it is acknowledged that “everyone’s a leader” and “everyone’s a manager”. This is a feature of Agile. But just as in traditional hierarchical organisations, in Agile, Leadership is different to Management.

Traditional Leadership

There are four dominant leadership “styles” that are, today, recognised as “traditional”. These are:

• Autocratic Leadership – This style relies on coercion, and is paternalistic, arbitrary, command- and compliance-driven.
• Democratic Leadership - Democratic Leadership solicits participation of direct reports, and respects their opinions.
• Laisse-Faire or “Reign free” Leadership – Almost completely abdicates his leadership position, to give all responsibility of most of the work entrusted to him to the group which he is supposed to lead, limiting his authority to maintain the contact of the group with persons outside the group, in that way “controlling” the interface between the group and the rest of the organisation.
• Paternalistic Leadership - They work to help, guide, protect, and keep subordinates happily working together by providing good working conditions and employee services.

Other styles of Leadership have developed over recent years that are more appropriate to Agile Leadership, such as:

• Situational Leadership - The leader or manager must adjust his style to fit the development level of the followers he is trying to influence.
• Transformational Leadership - The leader works with teams to identify needed change, creating a vision to guide the change through inspiration, and executing the change in tandem with committed members of a group.

However great these later styles are, there is no guarantee in any of these styles, that the style permeates the organisation. If the “top person” is autocratic, a person with another style will not be able to fully practice that style. I’m sure many of you have experienced this.

The problem is not in the style, but rather in the hierarchy. Hierarchies are necessarily “top down”. And “top-down” hierarchies generally don’t lend themselves to the needs of an Agile workforce. The other problem is “purpose”. The purpose of traditional organisations is to make money for the shareholders. This is more an anticipated result of Agile organisations and Agile Leadership. In Agile the focus is on (a) customer centricity, and (b) employee experience. When both of those are satisfied, shareholders get return on investment.

Agile Leadership

We have already spoken about Situational Leadership and Transformational Leadership. These styles are very effective in truly Agile business environments. Another style that is prevalent in agile business environments is Servant Leadership.

With Servant Leadership the main goal of the leader is to serve. This is different from traditional leadership where the leader's main focus is the prospering of their organisation. A Servant Leader shares power, puts the needs of the employees first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to enable and empower the people.

In her book Agile People[1], Pia Maria Thoren describes the difference between “traditional” leadership and agile leadership as follows:

Traditional Leadership - Agile Leadership

Communication via formal managers - Communication flows freely among everyone

Formal Leadership - Informal Leadership

Secret information - Transparent information

Decision making by Executives - Decision-making closest to the problem

SMART goals - OKRs

Formal managers - Self-leadership

Principles of Agile Leadership

Agile Leadership is essential if an organisation is to affect true Agile business change. Agile Leadership is different to traditional leadership in terms of leadership style and the willingness to expand capacity and extend capabilities to be more Agile. It is also different to leadership where leaders are going through the motions of just “doing Agile” because of some wider directive.

The Agile Business Consortium has developed the “Nine Principles of Agile Leadership”[2] that support Agile transformations. These are:

1.     Actions speak louder than words - Agile Leadership is about not only driving and promoting change, it is also about being the change, leading by example and actively engaging in own development and inspiring people. Inspiring leaders work on themselves first before working on others.

2.     Improved quality of thinking leads to improved outcomes - Agile Leaders value high quality thinking which will result in meaningful action. They take input from those closest to the problem and this goes some way to ensuring that they are in touch with reality.

3.     Organisations improve through effective feedback - Receiving feedback can often be perceived as a negative experience, so Agile Leaders lead the way by courageously soliciting meaningful, useful and timely feedback from peers and other colleagues.

4.     People require meaning and purpose to make work fulfilling - Agile Leaders focus on building and sharing a common understanding and purpose. They unify and align the different team and organisational values into inspired action.

5.     Emotion is a foundation to enhanced creativity and innovation - Agile Leaders inspire others to bring their best selves to their work. Innovation and creativity rely heavily on the respect encouraged by the Agile Leader being accessible, open, honest and transparent whilst expecting the same from others.

6.     Leadership lives everywhere in the organisation - The work of an Agile Leader is to develop depth in the organisation’s leadership capability by providing opportunities for all people to lead. Realising the leadership potential of all its people helps accelerate the organisation’s ability to learn and adapt.

7.     Leaders devolve appropriate power and authority - Agile Leaders recognise that people work best when they are enabled, engaged and energised. They recognise that empowerment is not an “all or nothing” concept, but rather a continuum of leadership behaviour that responds to the current context for change.

8.     Collaborative communities achieve more than individuals - Agile Leaders build communities based on high trust, respect and meaningful working relationships. Their role is to provide those communities with all that they need to operate efficiently but then to let them function autonomously within their boundaries.

9.     Great ideas can come from anywhere in the Organisation - People who are close to a problem usually have the best ideas about how to solve it, and Agile Leaders allow themselves to be open to the influence and ideas of others, regardless of their status or position.

• Has your company started to make the shift from traditional to agile leadership?
• Are you losing out on the benefits of real agility because leadership styles still follow the traditional methods?
• Is your leadership unaware of the need for their own transformation?
• Do we have the leadership that is able to implement a transformative digital skills architecture to address today’s skills demand?

The next article, “From Traditional to Agile Management – Why and How”, explains how the role of management needs to change for success in Agile workplaces.

[1] Pia Maria Thoren, “Agile People’, Lion Crest Publications, 2017

[2] https://www.agilebusiness.org/page/Resource_paper_nineprinciples

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