Embracing Leadership Realities by Sanjiv Augustine

In our age of hyper-turbulence and competition, the need for business agility led by transformational leaders is at an all-time high. Transformational leaders are able to take vision, purpose and mission and craft it to the realities that their organizations face. In the Agile community, there is a disconnect. While Agile takes a people-first approach, the reality is that in running a business or developing a product, there is a business motivation as much as there are people and organizational motivations. Transformational leadership is about embracing the focus on business value, supporting the vision through dynamic and enabling structures, and bringing the people along. Here's an example of a reality: Take the role of the ScrumMaster. ScrumMasters typically do not have authority to hire or terminate employment. Looking at Scrum roles - who does have this authority? How do they do it? It is not enough to say "We're doing Scrum." Who is going to hire and nurture employees, and who is going to terminate employment if things do not work out? Embracing realities like this and doing it in a way that is consistent with Agile methods is the next frontier of agile leadership.

 Mark As Complete