Leadership Systems: Re-thinking Leadership in the Agile/Lean Firm with Christopher Curley - Agile-Lean Ireland

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If Agile is a “Copernican revolution in management,” as Ed Denning suggests, is it also a “Copernican revolution in leadership? That question spawns more questions before we can answer it meaningfully. Is management (the quality of managing) different in leadership (the quality of leading)? Are managers (people who manage) also leaders (people who lead)? Who are the managers (which people manage)? Who are the leaders (which people lead)?

In this workshop, we’ll address how to begin answering these questions for yourself, by introducing participants to “leadership models” and “how to build yours.” The session will be practical because we learn by doing; it will be interactive because we learn faster when interacting (doing) with others. The session will be thought-provoking because only you can develop a leadership model that’s your own.

The first learning objective will be focused on revealing and reflecting back to you on what your assumptions and understandings of leadership might be. Some of these assumptions may be unconscious, based on biases, or both. This section will be interactive using real-time questions to solicit data and feedback to help open our thinking about leadership. At the end of this section, participants will have tools to reflect on their leadership assumptions and some of those assumptions explored and declared.

The second learning objective will be focused on how we traditionally study and teach leadership, and why those established practices make no sense in the Agile/Lean organization. This section will be a short lecture, using a statistical model to expose the limited utility of our traditional approaches to understanding and developing leadership in the organization. At the end of this session, participants will have some tools for beginning to tease out what they think “leadership” is, what is “good” leadership, what is “bad” leadership, and who the leaders are in their organization – as well as some references to continue this reflection going forward.

The third section will introduce leadership as a systems model, including a meta-model for defining and improving that model. This section will involve an interactive group breakout exercise. At the end of this session, participants will have a good start on their unique leadership model to help them “show up with leadership in the moment” or perhaps not – because the task at have may fall outside the boundary of our leadership system.

Speaker: Christopher Curley

An ICE-CE, Chapter Leader ("People Manager") at a global financial institution serving a team of Agile Coaches, a graduate of the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State, with degrees in political science and history, and a student of leadership for the past thirty years (James MacGreggor Burner, Barbara Kellerman, Ahmed Sidky, Bela Banathy, Chris Argyris, et al.) I introduced this topic on Marsha Acker's "Defining Moments of Leadership" podcast.

Certified Agile Coaching expert (ICE-CE), Program (SPC 4, PMP), and Team (CSM) Leader with +15 year history of delivering quality products, improving the efficiency of processes, and developing performing teams, spanning Fortune 100 enterprises to mid-sized technology, manufacturing, and financial sectors. Led Agile/Lean transition and adoption across the enterprise, including hardware design teams, software development teams, infrastructure services, business operations teams, manufacturing, and marketing.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccurley/

Find us here: www.agileleanireland.org