Reasons to Embrace a Distributed Leadership Model
Summary: In many companies, team leaders are traditionally appointed. While this approach offers organizations a reliable method for nurturing lasting synergy within their teams, it can also create drawbacks and hinder Agile teams from achieving a thriving Agile mindset.
Introduction
A significant concern arises when organizations appoint a team leader within an Agile framework, as it brings its own mix of advantages and drawbacks. However, when not executed properly, it can potentially result in more harmful anti-patterns than beneficial outcomes for team synergy.
In this essay, we will discuss how such a strategy might impede emerging leadership and why leaders should embrace servant leadership. I have also explored this topic with Brian Milner, a well-known Agile Coach who hosts the Agile Mentor group, along with the renowned Agilist Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software.
Firstly, regarding leadership styles, the distinction between team and technical leadership is often blurred or misunderstood. While both positions aim to guide teams, technical leadership emphasizes specialized technical skills alongside leadership qualities. Secondly, many stakeholders and team members face difficulties distinguishing between team leadership and technical leadership. When this distinction is not adequately clarified, it can lead to miscommunication among peers.
About team self-organization
I think the inclination to designate leadership roles, like team leader or technical leader, within a team can greatly diminish crucial elements needed for self-organization. Indeed, leaders who only possess technical expertise might lack the facilitation and soft skills necessary for agile servant leadership, which could result in micro-management. When I discussed this topic with Brian Milner, he pointed out that many individuals who are assigned a job title often assume they are automatically responsible as well.
" The problem that can come from it is sometimes when it starts to relate to the others on the development team, that they can see themselves as having a responsibility that scrum does not intend. The team is engineered to be a team of equals, without someone giving direction, instruction, micromanaging the day-to-day of how the team works. "
Thus, when someone on the team feels responsible for outcomes, it directly affects self-organization: it can influence team communication by reducing collaboration among peers and hindering emerging leadership. Not to mention that such a scenario can directly lead to a lack of engagement from peers, foster a toxic environment, and ultimately increase employee turnover. When I inquired with Chat GPT about the advantages and disadvantages of the practice of appointing a team leader in an Agile environment, here are the listed pros and cons.
Advantages:
- Clear Direction: A team leader guides decisions, ensuring alignment with project goals.
- Enhanced Communication: Streamlining communication boosts efficiency in relaying information and resolving conflicts.
- Quick Decision-Making: Designating a leader expedites decisions, preventing delays.
- Accountability: The team leader ensures performance standards are upheld.
Disadvantages:
- Overreliance: Depending too much on the leader could impede problem-solving skills and autonomy.
- Potential Micromanagement: Some leaders unintentionally stifle creativity and ownership.
- Impact on Collaboration: Leadership hierarchies might affect team collaboration.
- Burnout Risk: Overloading the leader may result in burnout and turnover.
Brian's advice on the topic appears very sensible to me.
" I think it's great to have a lead who can help establish best practices, mentor and bring people who are junior up to a higher level, raise the overall temperature of the skill level. But that would be my biggest caution with anyone with that kind of a job title is, all right, understand that when you're on the scrum team, you don't have more authority in how the team decides what it's going to do than anyone else. You're a developer like anyone else on the team "
Creating a Culture of Organizational Safety for Team Self-Organization
Even though Agile methodologies advocate for team-level leadership, fostering a distributed model, traditional management often adheres to a command-and-control approach. This can impede trust and transparency, both essential for enabling team self-organization to thrive.
Establishing a self-organized team without these foundations remains challenging, as it restricts the team mindset essential for empowering the team's journey toward continuous improvement.
Fostering an agile mindset
Within an Agile context, effective leadership entails departing from command and control. Instead, leaders should encourage self-organization by harnessing team dynamics and striking a balance between guidance and autonomy through servant leadership.
When Scrum fails to be inherently agile
As Brian and many others have encountered, some organizations employing the SCRUM framework, for example, allocate tasks to developers during their sprint planning sessions.
" There's a lot of people who, in particular the concept of during sprint planning, assigning out work. "
Brain says.
" And I advise people against that. I think you're hampering the team's growth. Because if you tell someone who's junior, Ah, you're not good enough to work on that. Rather than saying, Oh, you're going to pull that new thing? Yeah, that might be a little harder than you're thinking. Why don't we team up on it? "
" The other kind of thing that's a danger there when teams assign out work in a sprint planning session is that the individual members start to view the commitment at the end of the sprint planning session as being an individual commitment. "
There's no denying that this scenario would directly affect the team dynamic by dampening collaboration. When team members begin working in isolation, team synergy is directly affected, and collaboration inevitably suffers, hindering the optimal flow of work within the team.
Indeed, when team members are given tasks in isolation, there's a higher likelihood of reduced collaboration and synergy within the team. Trust among peers and ongoing improvement will naturally be compromised by this approach. I often refer to this scenario as "The Horse Race Dilemma."
Essentially, when the sprint begins, it resembles a horse race, with competitors sprinting until they reach the finish line. However, the crucial observation here is that in a horse race, there's only one winner, and it certainly isn't the team.
In conclusion, challenges stemming from traditional command-and-control leadership may endure within organizations for prolonged periods before being recognized and tackled. Without adopting servant leadership and executing thorough change management, these obstacles may persist and greatly impede organizational transformation endeavors.
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