Agile 2

5Kindsof LeadershipNeeded

The common aspects of management that academics usually cite are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.¹ Leading is sometimes split into directing and coordinating, because using the term leading is—not intending to make a pun—misleading since one can provide leadership about any of these things. For example, one can provide leadership with regard to organizing or planning.

There is also the matter of motivating people. Directing people presumes that they are motivated, but the way that you motivate people has a significant impact on their level of commitment. We discussed that in Chapters 3 and 4.

This is not a book about management theory or organization design. That said, we cannot avoid talking about those topics because they are cornerstones of agility.

We believe that the primary gap in the Agile Manifesto pertains to its treatment (or lack thereof) of the important topic of leadership. The Agile community has historically been skeptical of any kind of long-range planning, which we have discussed. For organizing, it prefers self-organization, which we have explained has merit but is too simple a model.

The Agile community also is antagonistic with regard to any notion of controlling, preferring to empower people to do their best and to learn so that control is replaced by individual judgment. We will talk about the control issue later, in the context of risk management. Our focus in this chapter is about what good leadership looks like, ...