Transactional leadership makes me cringe. Transactional leaders focus on title and hierarchy. They search for and crave prestige and authority. It all feels so political, and it’s a real problem for me. You manage things. You lead people. Grace Hopper Maybe it’s quotes like this that began my rub. Or maybe it’s my preference for …
People often talk about the value of a bias toward action. I know I did, but I believe I was mistaken. Why? No one thinks they lack a bias toward action. After all, busyness and productivity are hard to tell apart. For example, I remember a younger me who didn’t have GPS. When I was …
I can’t tell you how many times I heard LinkedIn’s former CEO Jeff Weiner echo these words. Trust is consistency over time. There’s no shortcut for either. It’s great advice whether we’re an aspiring or experienced leader. And I think it’s just as appropriate for coaches. Why? We don’t have this pesky thing called authority, …
I was getting breakfast with a colleague last week, and we were talking about leadership. Specifically we talked about polish. I told her that I preferred unpolished leaders; she disagreed. For me, it’s examples like General Mattis that come to mind as an excellent and unpolished leader. I had the honor of serving under him …
I’ve written before about how a Scrum Master can begin working with a new team, and lately I’ve been experimenting with a new technique. I won’t rehash what I’ve written already, but it’s important to understand that my previous advice still applies: When you’re not terribly smart, it helps to be a good listener. Jerry …
A Scrum Master’s Guide to Working With a New Team Read More »
I’ve been mentoring a group of young Scrum Masters for the last seven months, and recently one of them asked me a question: How do I foster trust within my team? Immediately, two thoughts came to mind: But why? Whether family, friends, or colleagues, we’re surrounded by people most times of the day, and our …
In my last blog post, I wrote about the side effects of manager as Product Owner. In it, I talked about how I believe these roles should be filled by different people. So if the manager isn’t directing the work, what’s s/he doing? How does a manager help his/her people when they’re distributed across multiple …
The Scrum Guide doesn’t talk about the role of managers. So does that mean that one day we have managers, and then as soon as we begin an agile transformation, they suddenly disappear? Of course not. So what do we do with them? Many organizations use managers to direct the work of their reports so …
Managers in an agile shop. It’s an interesting—and sometimes controversial—topic. In fact, Andy Cleff and I collaborated in June on this. We go in depth in his blog post titled Managers and Agile and Riding an Elephant. Since I haven’t yet written about managers in an agile shop on my own blog, I wanted to …
