Becoming an Agile Leader Regardless of Your Role

Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com@johannarothmanjr@jrothman.com+1-781-641-4046

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© 2015 Johanna Rothman

Traditional View of Leadership

• Guide, champion, “lead”

• Champion a cause

• People follow you

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© 2015 Johanna Rothman

DoTraditional Leadership Views Fit Agile?

• Agile is about team collaboration

• Servant leadership

• We need leaders at all “levels” in agile

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Some Stories of Inadvertent Leadership

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Common Themes

• See a problem

• Brainstorm ideas to solve it

• Involve others

• Experiment

• Create a new reality

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What is Leadership?

• Change something about the status quo

• Collaborate with others

• Create effective change when the situation changes

• Adaptability

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Adaptable leaders create effective change when the

situation changes.

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Change Invites Reinvention

• Take advantage of opportunities

• Make more opportunities

• Experiment

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Why Do You Make Your Choices?

• We each have a personal mission

• You can discover this with a career timeline

• Your timeline explains your values

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Start With Why

• What do you desire for fulfilling work?

• Purpose (why)

• Autonomy (how)

• Mastery (how and what)

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Everyone Lives Up or Down to Expectations

• Expectations shape us

• Everyone on your team has potential—of some sort

• It’s all about mindset

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Start With Your Mindset

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Carol Dweck, Mindset

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Focus on the Possible• When you focus, you

change how your brain works

• When you consider the possible, your expectations shape reality

• Source: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/06207?pg=all

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© 2015 Johanna Rothman

Changing Mindset is Challenging

• We often confuse our roles or titles with our identities

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Change is good.You first.

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Have the Courage to Become…

• A T-shaped person

• Someone who questions the way things are

• Collaborative

• Change artist

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Inspect and Adapt to Change

• Ability to solve problems

• Focus on what could be

• Adaptability

• Perseverance

• Leadership

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Inspect

Adapt

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How Do You Solve Problems?

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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

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Satir Change Model

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People don’t resist change;They resist being changed.

— Peter Senge

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Ways You Persevere

• Tell yourself the value of the change

• Know what keeps you going

• Celebrate incremental progress

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Agile is Change

• Cultural change

• Project change

• Process change

• Teams might change

• Each person can become a leader in a self-organizing team

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Become a Change Artist

• Invite people to change

• Experiment

• Listen to everyone

• Don’t label people

• Start with the smallest possible change

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Artistry is Difficult

• Requires a particular mindset:

• Let’s experiment

• Let’s learn early (instead of fail fast)

• Let’s learn as we go

• Think Growth Mindset

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© 2015 Johanna Rothman

Lead from Anywhere

• Your title is irrelevant

• Your actions count

• Adapt

• You can change to fit your reality

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Agile Leadership• Start with yourself…

• See the environment/system:

• What needs to change?

• Work with others to effect change

• Learn from results

• Do it again27

© 2015 Johanna Rothman

References and Resources

• My questions on createadaptablelife.com

• Pragmatic Manager and other articles on jrothman.com

• Explore more at the InfluentialAgileLeader.com

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© 2015 Johanna Rothman

Let’s Stay in Touch

• Pragmatic Manager:

• www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager

• Please link with me on LinkedIn

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