Our previous posts have focussed on the first two Stanchions of Organisational Transparency and Patterns of Work, however when applying Agile Governance as a system there is an inherent change to Leadership that is required. Many organisations that we have seen and worked with continue to attempt to apply the modes of traditional leadership whilst attempting to instil agility. The truth of the matter is when you apply agile to an organisation, agility by its very nature disseminates control and creates autonomy of decision making, which leaves command as the only lever for traditional leadership to pull. This results in less than desirable behaviours such as micromanagement that truncate the ability of agile to enable their organisation, teams and people. We tell people they are empowered with their new found agility, then we don't let them make decisions.

We need Conductive Leadership.

Therefore, leadership needs to change. What is Conductive Leadership? The idea came from an analogy we have been using for some time, where agile leaders are like the conductor of an orchestra, conductors enable the sum of the whole to come together in a coordination that creates a wonderfully synchronised result. They help everyone to flow in the same direction, if someone doesn’t understand the notes or the phrasing, they are there to interpret and explain. Do they play the instruments themselves? No!  Do they tell someone how to play the instrument? No, they don’t. What they do is enable the players, give them the autonomy to play in their own way within the guide rails of the piece of music. And bring it all together. A great example of this, and our initial inspiration for Conductive Leadership, is from this Ted Talk here.

The move to Conductive Leadership means encompassing a number of modalities, the first being :

Intent Based Leadership:

·  Pushing the autonomy to the people, teams and leaders whilst providing clear guide rails that provide the bounds of decisioning and when to escalate

·  Addressing and understanding what needs to be communicated, reported and understood asynchronously versus synchronously in order to release time for leaders and people, rather than micromanagement through a meeting culture 

Another of those modalities is:

Cognisance and Responsibility

Cognisance and responsibility around the design of the guide rails and policies. This is necessary to ensure they are designed with information flow and decision enablement in mind and not in direct conflict with the intrinsic links to “Organisational Transparency” and “Work Patterns” that we have previously written about. 

Create Clarity of Focus

Along with these, creating a Clarity of Focus on enabling teams and people by clearing impediments, trusting their ability to get the work done and providing them with a phycological safe environment to work becomes paramount. It requires finding the balance between clear direction and yet allowing each person their place, until ultimately the harmony of the organisation can come out, seemingly with the leader doing nothing, yet clearly still being present and leading in a near invisible way. 

As the great philosopher Lao Tzu is quoted saying: “A leader is best when people barely know he exits, when his work is done, his aim is fulfilled they will say: we did it ourselves"

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So in summary we believe that:

Modern agile ways of working require a style of Conductive Leadership that moves from the mechanistic approach where people are viewed as cogs in a machine, to humanistic approaches where creativity and individualism can flourish. 

This necessitates being more of a coach that leads and guides people rather than a manager that manages things. Governing with agility needs leaders who support, guide and provide enabling constraints rather than preventative ones. 

As a parting thought: Jack Welch’s  quote summarises conductive leadership as we see it : 

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” 

                                                                                                           Jack Welch 

 Image Credited to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stephen-oung/5732917385

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