Agile leadership

When employees say “We did that on our own”, the manager has done everything right.

Agile leadership

Companies that want to become more agile have no choice but to embark on the experiment of agile leadership. Because it is the prerequisite for agile working. It is about bringing employees together in self-organized, possibly cross-functional teams and enabling them not only to strive for solutions on their own initiative, but also to make quick, process-oriented decisions. In contrast to traditional management methods, the manager places themselves at the service of the team: they are transformed from a leading figure into an accompanying figure (“lateral leadership”), create the framework conditions, coordinate the team and provide the resources. Even if agile leadership overrides the bureaucratic hierarchy, it cannot do without rules and guidelines. This ensures that the objectives and independent decisions are in line with the company’s ideas and at the same time help to shape them. We have a lot of experience with transformation processes and are happy to support you.

Communication and team development as management tasks.

Communication is essential for agile leadership to be successful. Employees need clarity about their own scope for action. The objectives of the project must be discussed with the team and the individual performance targets of individual employees must be discussed together. The schedule is also coordinated together. It must also be ensured that employees have access to all the necessary information. Short-term feedback is just as important as a modern error culture in which mistakes are not punished but discussed openly and constructively. Managers must therefore be able to communicate on a wide variety of levels and should also be trained in group dynamics and team development. Innovative agile leadership programs from the berlin team help prepare employees for these tasks.

Managers - exemplify change, move from the operational to the strategic level.

Agile transformation can only succeed if managers actively exemplify change. This can be a major challenge. In many situations, the manager has to behave in a new and different way than usual. While she empowers her employees to make their own decisions, she herself loses influence and power. Hierarchy levels may be abolished, as will titles. The management function becomes a support function. But this change also brings advantages. Instead of being tied up in operational business, the manager now has the capacity to get involved at a strategic level. It no longer works in the system, but on the system. One of our tasks is to awaken managers’ understanding of and desire for this new role.