7 Most Valuable Leadership Behaviors for Change

1© 2016 Scaled Agile, Inc. All Rights Reserved.V4.0.0© 2016 Scaled Agile, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The 7 Most Valuable Leadership
Behaviors for Leading Change
Agile 2016, June 27nd
Richard Knaster
SAFE Fellow & Principal Consultant
Scaled Agile Inc.
@richardknaster

2© 2016 Scaled Agile, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
7 Most Valuable Leadership Behaviors
#1 - Exhibit the Lean-Agile mindset
#2 - Lead the change
#3 - Know the way and emphasize lifelong learning
#4 - Develop people
#5 - Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers
#6 - Decentralize decision-making
#7 - Evolve the role of managers

Leaders must know what to do!
It is not enough that management
commit themselves to quality and
productivity, they must know what it
is they must do.
Such a responsibility cannot
be delegated.
—W. Edwards Deming

#1 - Using a Lean-Agile mindset
LEADERSHIP
Respectfor
peopleandculture
Flow
Innovation
Relentless
improvement
VALUE
House of Lean
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Agile Manifesto
Value in the shortest
sustainable lead time

#2 - Leaders must lead the change
Empowering is NOT just giving
permission
Empowering is about providing
approval plus, knowledge, tools,
budget, people, time and inspiration
Leaders MUST be truly available to
the teams and help remove obstacles
“I have a dream…”—Dr. Martin Luther King

Using a proven change method
1. Establish a sense of urgency
2. Create a powerful guiding coalition
3. Develop the vision and strategy
4. Communicate the vision
5. Empower employees for broad-based action
6. Generate short term wins
7. Consolidate gains and produce more wins
8. Anchor new approaches in the culture

#3 - Leaders must know the way
Lean-Agile Leaders are lifelong
learners who help teams build better
systems through understanding and
exhibiting the values, principles and
practices of Lean, systems
thinking, and Agile development.
—Dean Leffingwell

And emphasize life-long learning
Principles of Product Development Flow,
Don Reinertsen
The Lean Machine, Dantar Oosterwald
Lean Product and Process Development,
Allen Ward and Durward Sobeck II
The Goal, Eliyahu Goldratt
Out of the Crisis, E. Deming
Agile Software Requirements, Dean
Leffingwell
Switch, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick
Lencioni

#4 - Leaders must develop people, not things
 Attract, recruit, and retain capable individuals
 Build high-performance teams
 Perform career counseling and personal
development
 Listen and support teams in problem identification,
root cause analysis, and decision-making
 Create an environment where the facts are always
friendly
 Provide freedom and safety so individuals and
teams are free to innovate, experiment, and even
fail on occasion

#5 - Unlock the motivation of knowledge workers
Workers are knowledge workers if they know more about the
work they perform than their bosses. —Peter Drucker
▸Workers themselves are best placed to make
decisions about how to perform their work
▸To effectively lead, the workers must be
heard and respected
▸Knowledge workers have to manage
themselves. They have to have autonomy.
▸Continuing innovation has to be part of their
work, the task, and the responsibility of
knowledge workers
Used with permission from The Drucker Institute at
Claremont Graduate University

#5 - And empower others
As we look ahead into the next century leaders will be those who empower
others—Bill Gates
▸Build a learning organization and emphasize life-
long learning
▸Create an environment of mutual influence
▸Foster decentralized decision-making
▸Provide vision, with minimum specific work
requirements
▸Eliminate demotivating policies, procedures, MBOs.
Revamp personnel evaluation.

#6 – By Decentralizing decision-making
Any inefficiency of decentralization costs less than the value of faster
response time.—Principles of Product Development Flow, Don
Reinertsen
Centralize decisions that:
- Are infrequent, long-lasting, and have significant economies of
scale
Decentralize all others:
- Frequent decisions
- Time-critical decisions
- Decisions that require local information
Define the economic logic behind a decision; empower individuals
and teams to actually make them

#7 - Evolve the Role of Managers
Successful transformations are based on educating management
first to become lean-thinking manager-teachers”, who lead, rather
than follow, the transformation
People are already doing their best; the problems are with the system.
Only management can change the system. —W. Edwards Deming

Using an Effective Leadership Style
The effectiveness of your workers is determined
in large part by your personal leadership style.
Leader as expert
Leader as conductor
Leader as developer
Recommended Reading:
Managing for Excellence,
David Bradford and
Allan Cohen

Leader as expert
Characteristics
 Technician or master craftsman
 Promoted because they were the
best at their job
 Problem solver, the one people go
to for answers
 Understands the domain and the
technology
 Work is when people leave them alone
Can be effective when manager has greater knowledge
than direct reports
Challenges
 Limits learning and growth of
direct reports
 Focus on technical problems to
the detriment of human factors
Managing for Excellence, David Bradford and Allan Cohen

Leader as conductor
Characteristics
 The central decision maker, nerve
center, coordinator
 Orchestrates all individual parts of the
organization into a harmonious whole
 Subtle and indirect manipulation to
their solution
 Manages across individuals, teams,
and departments
 Work is coordinating others
Challenges
 Narrows the focus of direct
reports to their own areas
 Conflict tends to push upward
looking for the boss to fix
 Use systems and procedures to
control work
 Works harder and harder, without
realizing full potential
Can be effective when coordination is a prerequisite
for maximum performance

Don’t get caught in the responsibility trap
 Negative reinforcing
cycle
 Fails to make full use
of the knowledge and
competencies of direct
reports
 Produces narrow and
self-interested direct
reports
for coordination for answers for overall unit goals
direct reports
feel
overcontrolled
direct reports feel
blocked,
underused
direct reports feel
committed only to
own subgoals

Leader as developer of people
Behaviors
 Creates a team jointly responsible
for success
 Asks, “How can each problem be
solved in a way that further develops
my people’s commitment and
capabilities?”
 Work is developing other’s abilities
Escape the trap with a post-heroic, Lean Leadership style
Benefits
 Increased direct report
ownership and responsibility
 Increased employee
engagement and motivation
 Allows leader to spend more
time managing laterally and
upward
 There is no limit to the power of
getting things done

#7 - Create an environment of mutual influence
Create a safe environment for learning, growth and mutual influence
Encourage direct reports:
 To disagree where appropriate
 To advocate for the positions they
believe in
 To push for their own needs
 To enter into joint problem solving
 To negotiate, compromise,
agree, commit
Garth Andrews holding the
coveted Horse’s Rear award

Core Leadership Personal Characteristics for Change
 Committed
 Communicative
 Confident
 Courageous
 Decisive
 Empathic
 Empowering
 Honest
 Humorous
 Inspirational
 Listens
 Persistent
 Optimistic
 Respectful
 Trustworthy

7 Most Valuable Leadership Behaviors for Change

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