The Making of An Agile Leader PDF

The Making of an
Agile Leader
You Must Be Agile to Do Agile
Jean Dahl
Beijing Boston Farnham Sebastopol Tokyo

The Making of an Agile Leader
by Jean Dahl
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Table of Contents
1. The Making of an Agile Leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Agile Is the Answer 3
The Challenging Aspects of Agile for Leaders 8
What Does “Being Agile” Mean to Leaders? 13
Agile’s Foundation: Servant Leadership 14
Steps to Building a Culture of Servant Leadership 35
Conclusion 37
A. 15 Classic “Must Reads” for Servant Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
iii
CHAPTER 1
The Making of an Agile Leader
Adapting a digital mindset is a must to stay competitive and

embracing agility (the ability to rapidly respond to change) is no
longer a choice for companies that want to survive and thrive. They
must develop a digital mindset, become acutely focused on creating
and delivering customer value, and address the crisis in leadership
and its inability to effectively engage a new type of workforce.
A recent study done by Altimeter, a global digital research company,
found that many companies exhibit low digital literacy. They remain
complacent and still aren’t investing in digital strategies, initiatives,
and operating models; restraining their ability to be innovative and
responsive,1 despite the fact that customers have embraced Internet
of Things (IoT) products for more than 10 years now. The Altimeter
survey also found that digital transformation lacks leadership and
purpose, and that only 40% of companies operated with an
executive-mandated steering committee responsible for digital
transformation.2 Embracing new ways of working and accepting the
fact that nothing is constant but change itself must become the new
normal. Acutely focusing leaders on the task of building and leading
organizations that identify, create, and deliver products and services
that are considered valuable for both the customer and company
alike.
1 Solis, Brian and Aubrey Littleton. “The 2017 State of Digital Transformation”. Altime‐
ter. October 3, 2017. p. 4.
2 Ibid., Solis and Littleton. p. 5.
1
Many companies are still intensely focused on cutting costs, instead
of identifying their company’s mission, vision, and value proposi‐
tion. Despite the success of companies like Facebook and Amazon
that lost millions of dollars in their early years, because they itera‐
tively and incrementally built their companies with the customer in
mind. First and foremost, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook)
and Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) focused on filling the wants,
needs, and desires of this new customer. The revenue and profits
eventually followed, building thriving businesses admired the world
over. The mantra of this new generation of leaders has become
“Build products and services that customers find useful and valua‐
ble. and the profits will eventually follow.”
However, not every company is a Facebook or Amazon, but focus‐
ing on customer value and motivating a company’s workforce so
that employees are focused on delivering it requires a new form of
leadership. Unfortunately, many corporate cultures are risk-averse,
and leaders just don’t feel a sense of urgency to change the way they
work, manage, and compete in today’s marketplace. The net impact
is a crisis in leadership, resulting in low digital literacy, failed digital
transformations, and a disengaged workforce.
The main obstacles being encountered include politics, egos, and
fear. Unfortunately, many of today’s leaders lack the vision to con‐
front these obstacles and the skills to make and sustain lasting
change. A new way of working and a new form of leadership is nec‐
essary to harness the creativity of a new generation entering the
workforce to spur innovation. The companies that embrace agility
and develop new leaders that serve the greater good of the organiza‐
tion will survive and thrive in the long run. Those that don’t are des‐
tined to perish.
The landscape of the workplace is also changing. A new workforce is
emerging as Millennials, the generation born between 1982 and
2004, seek a completely different work experience than the genera‐
tions that have gone before them.3 According to Daniel Pink in his
book, Drive,4 this new workforce values autonomy, mastery, and
purpose. They seek transparency; being trusted, valued, and respec‐
3 Wikipedia. “Strauss–Howe Generational Theory”. Accessed November 4, 2017.

4 Daniel Pink, Drive (Penguin, 2011).
2 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

ted; having a voice; and making a difference when it comes to their
work.
Unlike the generations before them, Millennials also want to be
engaged instead of merely taking orders. They don’t buy into or
work well within heavy command-and-control environments. These
old ways will not work with this new generation. They are also social
and socially conscientious, and want to work in teams and collabo‐
rate with one another, as well as work on products that are socially
responsible. The way to motivate Millennials is to give them a cause
or a problem, with very few limitations and barriers to slow them
down. Then let them go at it, giving them purpose, allowing them to
develop mastery, and permitting them to work autonomously.
Agile Is the Answer

So, how do companies develop a customer-focused digital mindset,
engage this new workforce, successfully transform to these new
ways of working, and address the crisis in leadership? The answer…
by adopting Agile. It consists of a set of values, principles, and meth‐
ods that offer companies a way to rapidly respond to both internal
and external changing conditions, in order to gain or maintain com‐
petitive advantage and deliver value to both customers and stake‐
holders. In a world of rapidly changing requirements, that means
that companies can respond quickly to both threats and opportuni‐
ties.
In this second wave of disruption, characterized by a rapid rate of
change, Agile methods offer a better way of working. Being Agile
inherently means a company is nimble and responsive. The days
where a company had the luxury of spending months and even
years developing products and services is over. Months, weeks, and
even days is now the cycle time from conception to market release
required before the competitive advantage disappears. First to mar‐
ket is still king and market share is everything. That has not
changed!
The Agile Manifesto and Principles

Agile answers this call to action. It offers a set of core values and
principles that appeal to this new generation of workers, as well as
iterative and incremental ways of working that allow companies to
quickly respond to change. However, in many ways, Agile is misun‐
Agile Is the Answer | 3

derstood and many times misinterpreted. Overall, Agile is a mind‐
set. It came into being in 2001, when 17 developers came together to
discuss the state of the software industry at that time. The Agile
Manifesto consists of the following four tenets:
Individuals and interactions over process and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negation
Responding to change over following a plan
While we value the things on the right, we value the things on the
left more.5
By developing and committing to the things on the left, they wanted
the world to know their highest priority was to satisfy the customer,
by building and delivering working software (or products) by:
• Working in short increments and delivering products in an iter‐

ative manner, instead of taking months and years to develop
something based on a waterfall project plan
• Collaborating directly with the customer, in a face-to-face man‐
ner to understand their requirements, instead of being thrown
documentation over a wall, within a siloed organization
• Working in self-organized teams at a sustainable and consistent
work pace, instead of having to answer to a project manager
that was “supposed” to direct their work and push them when
the teams fell behind this “arbitrary” schedule
• Practicing agility through technical excellence, good design, and
simplicity instead of wasting time on producing mounds of
unwanted documentation
• Learning and taking time to reflect, inspect, and adjust, instead
of being rushed into the next phase of a project, without any
time to learn and grow
They weren’t saying, however, that the things mentioned on the

right, like contracts, documentation, and plans weren’t important,
they were merely looking for balance. They were focusing on collab‐
oration, transparency, trust, and respect within the software devel‐
opment process, ensuring that everyone was working together
5 The Agile Manifesto. Accessed November 3, 2017.

toward a common goal, instead of being at odds. So, they penned
the Agile Manifesto and went on to develop its accompanying 12
Principles of Agile Development as a battle cry to stick up for their
rights from the development side. Their goal was to change the
mindset and business climate, because Agile isn’t something you do,
it is a state of being. It is a philosophy; a way of living. When you
truly embrace its core values and principles, you are committing to a
major shift in your behavior and thought processes. And you can
formally commit to its tenets by signing it at the Manifesto for Agile
Software Development page.
“Doing” versus “being” Agile

Many very large, established companies have struggled to pivot to
an Agile mindset, because they mostly focus on the wrong thing:
“doing” Agile. That is, focusing on the methods, instead of truly
understanding the mindset shift that must happen. They are either
unwilling or unable to fully embrace the cultural, organizational,
and political changes that must occur when it comes to “being”
Agile. Or, in other words, embracing its core values and principles.
The truth is that smaller and more nimble organizations are out-
competing more established companies. The rise of startups over
the last two decades and recent breakthrough success stories from
companies such as Facebook, Zappos, Airbnb, and Spotify has ush‐
ered in a second wave of disruptive innovation. This new wave is
characterized by embracing and focusing on putting the customer at
the front of the development process to develop and deliver
customer-defined value.
Agile delivers customer value

With so many options available today, products and services must
be developed with customer value in mind. Customers are more
demanding than ever, expecting exciting new products and services
to be introduced to the market on a regular basis. Development
efforts must be value-based and offer today’s customer something
they want, fill a need, or satisfy a desire. There are way too many
alternatives out there nowadays, and companies must produce
value-based products and services to survive in the keenly competi‐
tive markets that exist today.
Also, Agile organizations understand and employ the concept of a
minimum-viable product (MVP)—that is, one with just enough fea‐

tures to release out to the market so that customers find value in it.
Once the product is released, companies can understand customer
preferences, behaviors, and desires in real time, which minimizes
risk and ensures they are working on the “right stuff.” By employing
these fast feedback loops and learning cycles, Agile methods offer
effective ways to continue to evolve their products with the cus‐
tomer in mind, resulting in higher customer satisfaction. By incor‐
porating these learnings back into the development cycle, the
company validates that it is developing the right products and
services.
Agile supports revenue-based thinking

Many companies have stayed afloat during the 21st century by
reducing costs. However, there comes a time when there is nothing
more to cut, and revenue generation becomes a must. This shift is
going to be hard for many, but doing so may mean the difference
between remaining a going concern versus perishing alongside
some of the biggest and most well-known companies in the world,
such as Eastman Kodak, Blockbuster, Nokia, and Borders.6 Each a
giant in their own industry at one time, all are now defunct. Shifting
customer demand and not keeping up with the changing times
resulted in the death of these companies. Netflix killed Blockbuster,
Borders fell to Amazon, Kodak and Nokia were done in by Apple,
and on and on. At some point, all of these companies had an oppor‐
tunity to respond to changing customer demand, but unfortunately
made the choice to continue with the status quo.
Progressive companies are using Agile methods to move away from
thinking that reducing costs is their only option, to focusing on
increasing revenue by satisfying customer needs and delivering
innovative new products out to the market. This shift has ushered in
the age of revenue-based thinking, focused on satisfying the insatia‐
ble appetites of their 21st-century customer base and their cravings
for the “next big thing” to hit the market.
6 Locker, Melissa. “8 Iconic Brands that Have Disappeared”. November 9, 2014. Accessed
November 3, 2017.

Agile requires holistic enterprise alignment
Agile doesn’t work in siloed organizations. To introduce Agile meth‐
ods into an organization means that product management, portfolio
management, technology, and business operations must all be holis‐
tically aligned, which represents a completely different operating
model. Information must move freely across the entire enterprise
value chain, and every part of the organization must work together
to produce value-adding, customer-focused products and services.
To break down the siloes, companies must reevaluate their operating
models and consider how value creation and delivery moves
through its enterprise value chain. Identifying this path, and then
restructuring the organization to break dependencies, is crucial.
Once this is accomplished, organizations can capitalize on Agile
methods focused on iterative and incremental product development
techniques.
Agile fosters innovation

The need to innovate is pushing the envelope. To survive and thrive
in today’s business climate, companies need to embrace innovation.
Agile methods allow for iterative, rapid development that focuses on
quickly determining what doesn’t work, adjusting, and trying again.
This loop continues until products and services that add value are
brought to market, based on customer wants, needs, and desires.
This is a radical departure from more traditional methods, where
senior executives dictate product direction. In Agile companies, cus‐
tomers are invited in and treated as first-class partners. The old say‐
ing that “The customer is king,” is true and engrained in the very
fabric of an Agile organization.
Agile fits the 21st-century company

Agile offers the solution to developing a digital mindset and focus‐
ing on creating and delivering customer value by:
• Making satisfied customers the highest priority

• Welcoming change to harness competitive advantage
• Delivering working software in a couple of weeks or months
• Stressing collaboration, autonomy, simplicity, transparency, and
trust

• Providing a supportive working environment that fosters inno‐
vation and a motivated workforce
• Supporting continuous improvement through a culture of adap‐
tation and reflection that periodically pauses to learn from its
mistakes and adjust
• Following the mantra “Fail fast, and adjust,” so that you figure
out what doesn’t work—and determine what does as fast as
possible
Now, let’s address the “why” behind our current crisis in leadership,
as well as the issues associated with effectively engaging this new
type of workforce, before moving on to discuss how Agile can solve
both issues.
The Challenging Aspects of Agile for Leaders

Agile is “not natural” for command-and-control leaders. Its methods
are not intuitive and might not even “feel” comfortable to those
coming from a more traditional Scientific Management background.
During the 20th century, Scientific Management was taught as the
predominant management theory within business schools through‐
out the world. Fredrick W. Taylor, regarded as the father of Scientific
Management (also known as Taylorism) and recognized to be the
first true management consultant, documented his research findings
in a book published in 1911 entitled The Principles of Scientific Man‐
agement. Taylor had very precise ideas about how to introduce his
system, as well as the role of management versus workers:
It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced
adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and
enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the
duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this
cooperation rests with management alone.7
He believed that control should rest with management, and not the
workers performing the work. His theories stressed that workers
must be taught to follow the rules and obey authority. Coloring out‐
side of the lines was not an option and highly discouraged.
7 Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (Harper and Brothers Pub‐
lishing, 1911), Ch. 2, p. 83.

The Effect of Generational Work Styles
Following process and chain of command is still alive and well today
in many 21st-century companies. After all, these were the methods
being taught when Baby Boomers (defined as the generation born
between 1946 and 1960) went through school. Taylorism influenced
almost 60 years of management thought. It wasn’t until the 1990s
that management theory shifted as Gen Xers (defined as the genera‐
tion born between 1961 to 1981) came of age. They were filled with
entrepreneurial spirit, individualism, and risk taking, and sought
more work/life balance than their parents. Management thought
leaders, such as Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, and Stephen Covey
wrote about leadership, instead of management; they emphasized
teamwork, collaboration, and a virtually overlooked leadership style
known as servant leadership.
Gen Xers gravitated to these thought leaders and ushered in the
“first wave of innovative disruption” in the dot-com era, kicked off
by the founding of Amazon in 1994 and ending in 2003 when Time
Warner dropped “AOL” from its title, even though it was AOL that
acquired Time Warner.8 Now in our second wave, beginning with
the founding of Facebook in 2004, a 2015 study by the Sage Group
reported that Gen Xers “dominate the playing field” with respect to
founding startups in the United States and Canada, launching the
majority (55%) of all new businesses in 2015:9
Small businesses and the entrepreneurial spirit that Gen Xers
embody have become one of the most popular institutions in
America. There’s been a recent shift in customer behavior and Gen
Xers will join the “idealist generation” in encouraging the celebra‐
tion of individual effort and business risk-taking. As a result, Xers
will spark a renaissance of entrepreneurship in economic life, even
as overall confidence in economic institutions declines. Customers,
and their needs and wants (including Millennials) will become the
North Star for an entirely new generation of entrepreneurs.10
Agile appeals to Gen Xers and Millennials because it stresses values
and principles that didn’t exist in Tayloristic environments, such as
8 World History Project. “Dot-Com Bubble timeline”. Accessed November 5, 2017.

9 “2015 State of the Startup”. Sage. 2015. Accessed November 5, 2017.
10 Morley Winograd; Michael Hais (2012). “Why Generation X is Sparking a Renaissance
in Entrepreneurship”. Retrieved April 22, 2013.
The Challenging Aspects of Agile for Leaders | 9

risk taking, creativity, autonomy, collaboration, entrepreneurship,
and an unwavering focus on the customer.
However, Baby Boomers are a whole different story. They were
brought up to obey the rules and respect chain of command. They
sought security and routine, because of the uncertain world of the
1970s and early-to-mid-1980s. Survival was based on following the
rules as a means of maintaining order and a sense of security on the
heels of a post-World War II society, living on the brink of World
War III and nuclear holocaust as a result of the Cold War between
the United States and Soviet Union. These factors added up to a
generation that learned to play it safe and seek security in a turbu‐
lent world.
As a result, Agile doesn’t feel “natural” to Baby Boomers. To
embrace Agile values, principles, and methods, it will take a greater
mind shift for them than is the case with Gen Xers and Millennials.
For Baby Boomers, Agile means being way more than a little out of
their comfort zones, which causes resistance to change. To develop a
digital mindset, it will require a genuine desire to change and a con‐
scious shift in both mindset and working style to thrive in the world
of Agile.
A generation gap between these three groups has formed, on a level
that the world of work has never experienced before. And if you
take a look at the organizational structure of many established com‐
panies (excluding most startups, of course), they are run by Boom‐
ers at the top, with Gen Xers making up much of middle
management, while the workforce consists mostly of Millennials. It’s
a generational clash spurred on because of the differences between
Taylorism and this new, emerging way of working known as Agile.
The two are in such stark contrast that the former doesn’t under‐
stand the latter, and vice versa, causing natural conflict between the
two styles in the world of work. Let’s discuss several factors that are
blocking the adoption and successful transformation to Agile within
many established companies today.
Agile Is About Doing What I Say and Do as an Executive

Agile is perceived by many executives as a free-for-all, with little
structure and no control. To solve this issue, the senior leadership
team must change its perception of Agile. The best way to make this
happen is to have them run like a Scrum team, embracing Agile’s

core values, principles, and ways of working. Senior leaders must
learn to apply the same discipline and rigor that the development
teams do. By applying the same techniques as the rest of the organi‐
zation, they physically show their support for the behaviors and cul‐
ture they are trying to build.
For example, GE Digital’s11 COO, Brad Surak, who began his career
in software engineering and who was a Scrum Master himself,
piloted the use of Scrum with its top executives. They built their
backlog, ran two-week sprints, conducted stand-ups three times a
week, and charted their progress on their Scrum board in a confer‐
ence room open to everyone. The result: the executives learned
Scrum and how to sprint, and the employees were able to visually
see what the team was working on and what progress they made
toward their sprint goals, as well as working through many impedi‐
ments that were important to them. By using Scrum, they were also
able to solve some difficult problems around pricing issues for prod‐
ucts requiring input from multiple GE businesses, as well as leading
by example and really embracing Agile core values and principles
and the Scrum framework.
Agile looks like the Wild Wild West

Agile methods are perceived as chaotic or even anarchist. To an
unschooled eye looking into an Agile organization, it appears very
disorganized. A Tayloristic manager would immediately ask, “Who’s
in charge?” Because to them, it looks like the answer is no one! This
is a perception issue, because the teams appear to be working on
their own.
Agile stresses “just-in-time” planning instead of the long, upfront,
and drawn-out planning cycles employed by more traditional meth‐
ods. It happens in cycles throughout the organization, instead of
being concentrated at the top. Agile methods stress strategic, prod‐
uct, release, and development planning sessions in the same manner
and level as more traditional methods. The difference is in who does
it. The teams are involved in planning to a level that is not present in
traditional methods.
11 Rigby, Darrell K., Sutherland, Jeff, and Takeuchi, Hirotaka. “The Secret History of Agile
Innovation”. Harvard Business Review. April 20, 2016. Accessed November 4, 2017.
The Challenging Aspects of Agile for Leaders | 11

Instead of having program and project managers figure out and plan
the work, the team is empowered to do the heavy lifting when it
comes to planning. It looks anarchist, because the teams are self-
organizing. Many confuse self-organizing with self-led and that is not
the connotation being discussed here. Self-organizing means the
teams figure out how to get the work done. They self-select what
they work on from a predetermined backlog. However, they still
have a leader in that the product owner figures out the priority and
what the team works on and in what sequence for each development
cycle, known as a sprint in Scrum.
Agile is not a “silver bullet”

Agile cannot fix all the issues within an organization, and if you ask
most senior leaders why they want to adopt an Agile mindset and
implement Agile ways of working, it’s not about empowering teams,
creating feedback loops to build better products, or even creating
customer value. More times than not, it’s about missed commit‐
ments and not delivering on time; poor quality; lack of visibility and
transparency into what is going on within their organizations; and
lowering costs. Adopting Agile methods will solve most of these
issues, but it is going to take a lot of time and effort to reap these
rewards.
Transforming an organization costs money and requires the entire
organization to change its structure, culture, and ways of working.
Change agents embarking on a journey to agility face an uphill bat‐
tle, no matter how progressive the company. Change is a scary thing,
and requires concessions and discomfort at every level. Also, sup‐
port must come from the top. Senior leaders must be the first to be
retrained and embrace an Agile mindset and ways of working.
Half-hearted buy-in attempts result in low digital literacy and a
splintered organization. Oftentimes, this leaves the organization
worse off than it was before the transformation started, because
returning to the way things were is frankly impossible. Because of
these botched attempts, statements like “We’ve tried Agile here and
it just doesn’t work for us,” can be heard in the hallways and meeting
rooms as the organization struggles to find its way out of the black
hole it created for itself. The seriousness of the decision to adopt
Agile should not be taken lightly, and the implications to the organi‐
zation should not be underestimated. Agile is a journey and you

must be realistic about what you are committing to: that is, a never-
ending journey of continuous improvement.
What Does “Being Agile” Mean to Leaders?

Agile’s ultimate goal is to get products into the hands of customers
faster, by directly engaging the customer, exploiting fast feedback
loops that stress learning and the evolution of both the team and the
product, and giving a group of motivated individuals a purpose and
letting them figure out the best way to accomplish it. That is what
Agile is all about! For leaders, it means stepping out of the way and
allowing the workforce to decide the best way to accomplish the
goals of the organization.
To many leaders, this sounds like a scary way to operate. It means
stepping back and getting out of the way of the team to move for‐
ward. It also means allowing your customers, partners, and employ‐
ees to own the process. Leaders are no longer expected to have all
the answers. Instead, their role becomes focused on empowering
this group of people to do amazing things together. That is the role
of an Agile leader.
However, it doesn’t mean leaders go away. Now more than ever lead‐
ers are sorely needed. It’s just a different form of leadership—one
that requires leaders to pivot to this new paradigm, which can and
will be difficult for some because it means:
• Adopting a more collaborative and transparent leadership style

• Learning new skills and new ways of leading
• Leaving the command-and-control mindset at the door
• Learning new ways to motivate, communicate, and innovate
It means becoming a servant leader, and putting the team’s wants,

needs, and desires first over that of your own, protecting and
empowering them so that they can focus on the work at hand. To
become an organization that embraces agility, leaders must lead
from a position of service, not power.
What Does “Being Agile” Mean to Leaders? | 13

Agile’s Foundation: Servant Leadership
The term “servant leader” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in an
essay he published in 1970.12 It is ironic that at this point in history
we need to take a step back to move forward. Reaching back in time
to pull forward a concept that is essential to developing a culture of
agility. Greenleaf also believed that the world was experiencing a cri‐
sis in leadership, and it was his duty to address it and introduce a
new mindset to support the shift that needed to happen to move the
world forward.
Greenleaf was inspired to define servant leadership after reading
Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East. In Hesse’s story, a band of men
on a mythical journey were accompanied by a servant named Leo.
Leo, through his incredible presence, was the lifeblood of the group.
He looked after, entertained, and sustained the men. Until one day,
Leo disappeared, and the men abandoned their journey. Leo was
such a vital part that the men could not continue on their own. Time
passes and some years later, the narrator is taken in by a religious
order, only to find that Leo, whom he had first known as a servant,
was its guiding spirit, a great and noble leader himself.
To Greenleaf, this story clearly exemplified that “A great leader is a
servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his [or her] great‐
ness.”13 He believed leadership was bestowed upon Leo because of
who he was by nature…a servant. His desire and ability to serve was
what made him a great leader. Something that could not be taken
away, because it was inherently inside of him to serve and focus on
the needs of others, and to help them grow and flourish. And in his
joy to serve, his leadership abilities sprung forth.
Greenleaf also wrote that he believed the country was in a state of
crisis in leadership.14 And he believed that he should do what he
could about it, which spurred him to write the essay and to intro‐
duce the concept of servant leadership to the world. In response to
the clearly evident servant stature of the leader, he later went on to
say:
12 Greenleaf, Robert K. “The Servant as Leader”. Greenleaf.org. Accessed October 8, 2017.

13 Ibid., Greenleaf, p. 2.

Rather, they will freely respond only to individuals who are chosen
as leaders because they are proven and trusted as servants. To the
extent that this principle prevails in the future, the only truly viable
institutions will be those that are predominantly servant-led. I am
mindful of the long road ahead before these trends, which I see so
clearly, becoming a major society-shaping force. We are not there
yet. But I see encouraging movement on the horizon.15
We are at a crossroads in the world today, as the old, Tayloristic
ideas clash with disruptive innovation, a changing workforce, and
the need to shift to a customer focus. Now more than ever, there is a
need for leaders to step up and serve to move us forward.
Agile Embraces Servant Leadership

Little did Greenleaf know that it would take over 30 years for a
movement to come along that would be founded on his leadership
beliefs. Agile embraces servant leadership and is very important
when it comes to creating an environment of agility. The high levels
of uncertainty present in the world today require a lot of creativity.
The team needs to be empowered and supported to develop the best
possible solution, not crushed under the weight of an autocratic,
command-and-control leader.
Agile’s core values and beliefs are founded on collaboration, trust,
empathy, and ethical use of power. Servant leaders strive to holisti‐
cally approach the world from multiple dimensions, such as intellec‐
tual, emotional, spiritual, and relational, to lead from a balanced
position that encourages and supports the team to get the “job done
well” through their commitment to serve others. Leaders must be
willing to stand up and face this leadership crisis head on, and
become totally committed to taking this next step forward in our
evolutionary journey.
So, who must become a servant leader? Greenleaf stated that:
The servant-leader is servant first — as Leo was portrayed. It begins
with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then
conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.16
In Agile, the person most often tapped on the shoulder to be or
become a servant leader is the Scrum Master (SM) within the Scrum
Agile’s Foundation: Servant Leadership | 15

framework. However, conflict arises when at the team level, the SM
performs as a servant leader, but the upper and middle management
layers still employ the old command-and-control style of managing.
What results is an inherent mismatch, and angst and animosity
begin to form and become apparent within the organization.
Servant leadership needs to be practiced from the top down,
throughout the organization. If you think about it, the SM for a
team of executives is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The other
members of the C-Suite (CIO, CPO, CSO, CMO, etc.), form the
Scrum team. The CEO must serve this team and help them to self-
organize to get the work done. In turn, each member of the C-Suite
is also an SM, helping their teams to self-organize, and so on. In this
manner, servant leadership is propagated throughout the organiza‐
tion and executives lead through their service to their teams and
organization.
Servant leadership and “being Agile”

Moving to Agile means embracing a servant leader’s mindset.
Without completely making this shift in leadership style, companies
are only paying lip service to “being Agile.” The lack of the right type
of leadership within companies trying to adopt Agile, in my opin‐
ion, is the biggest reason for the failure of many Agile transforma‐
tions. When leaders lead from a position of serving first, their
followers reward them by giving them their trust, respect, and the
willingness to follow. In judgment, values, competence, and sustain‐
ing spirit in support of the tenacious pursuit of a common goal:
working software.
15 Traits of a Servant Leader

To become a servant leader, you must develop a whole new set of
traits to be able to serve both your teams and organization. Let’s
look at the traits that characterize a servant leader.
Leads by example
One of the most famous quotes in the classic book by Sun Tzu, a
Chinese general who lived around 500 BC and wrote a treatise enti‐
tled The Art of War stated, “A leader leads by example, not by force.”
That is, a leader demonstrates and supports his or her beliefs
through action. They must model the behavior they desire from

their followers that most benefits the collective good of the organi‐
zation. Then, back it up with consistent and predictable words that
reinforce the behaviors.
As a leader, whether you realize it or not, you are being watched.
Your followers look for inconsistencies, because being predictable is
actually very comforting to them. The fastest way for a leader to lose
credibility and the trust of his/her followers is to be inconsistent and
unpredictable. Leading by example elicits trust and respect from a
leader’s followers. It displays the leader’s integrity and conviction to
the path he/she has chosen, because a true leader would never ask
anyone to do something he or she would not do themselves.
Leading by Example: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mr. King is an excellent example of a leader who led by example.
During the civil rights marches of the 1950s and 1960s, he fought
for the civil rights of all African Americans within the United
States. He advocated a nonviolent approach of civil disobedience,
based on his Christian beliefs. He organized and led many marches
for this cause, marching right alongside his followers, many times
front and center leading the way. And he was beaten by police and
arrested numerous times until his untimely death in Memphis, TN,
on April 4, 1968.
Mr. King didn’t live to see his vision of equal rights for all Ameri‐
cans regardless of color become a reality. The Civil Rights Act of
1968 was signed into law on April 11, 1968, just seven days after his
assassination. However, he was and still is one of the greatest exam‐
ples of leading by example history has ever known. He believed so
deeply in his service to his fellow Americans of color, which were so
threatening to some, that it cost him his life. He paid the ultimate
price for his beliefs, because it was the right thing to do.
His strength came from his conviction that built such a compelling
vision, backed up by his actions and communication style, that
moved a generation. People followed him because of both his words
and actions. It would have been easy for him to say “You all go
march in Selma for your rights. I’ll be right behind you.” He wasn’t
about to ask his followers to take or assume any risk that he himself
wouldn’t take. Nope…he was front and center, leading the way!

When a mandate to “go Agile” comes down from senior leadership,
it must be reinforced through your behavior as a leader. Embracing
the characteristics of servant leadership must happen within the
organization. Without it, you’re just going through the motions, and
real and lasting change will not be achieved.
Inspires action through vision and purpose

Vision is the future state the leader is attempting to create. It is
something that he or she can see so very clearly in their mind’s eye,
that it gives them purpose and defines who they are and what they
are about. And when they share it with their followers, it becomes
the driving force that rallies the organization in its quest to fulfill its
mission (why it exists). A leader’s vision is a call to action for his or
her followers. Action that is both genuine and purposeful, by build‐
ing a vision and setting goals, then working toward their achieve‐
ment, gives those that follow a sense of purpose, as well as great
fulfilment when the goal is achieved. To paint a picture of where the
organization is going and what it is trying to accomplish, forms a
mutual sense of purpose. A leader whose vision is so clear concern‐
ing what he or she is trying to create, is a very easy leader to follow
indeed.
Leading by Action: Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com

Consider Amazon’s mission and vision statement created more
than 18 years ago by its founder, Jeff Bezos:
Our vision is to be earth’s most customer-centric company; to
build a place where people can come to find and discover any‐
thing they might want to buy online.17
Bezos intended from the very start to lay out a vision for his com‐
pany to be earth’s most customer-centric company. His mission was
to build a place where people can come to find and discover any‐
thing they might want to buy online, and his value proposition was
convenience, speed, and choice.18 He publicly stated numerous
times that he believes the company’s success was greatly influenced
17 Farfan, Barb. “Amazon.com’s Mission Statement”. March 20, 2017. Accessed June 29,
2017.
18 Heer, Patrick. “What is Amazon’s unique value proposition?” June 14, 2017. Accessed
June 29, 2017.

by its unwavering commitment to its vision and mission, and its
relentless pursuit to fulfil its value proposition. He also believes
they represent the guiding lights behind his leadership decisions
and greatly contributed to the company’s tremendous success,
because everyone at Amazon knows why the company exists, what
it wants to become, and the value it attempts to create for its cus‐
tomers. There is no guessing or uncertainty, because Bezos made it
very clear from the start. Everyone works together toward achiev‐
ing a common set of strategic goals, and any decision at any level is
made with these guiding lights in mind.
Fosters innovation and creativity

Servant leaders encourage those they serve to experiment and take
risks. To color outside of the lines. To tap into and unlock the vast
amounts of creativity inherent in all of us. Many a great invention
would never have seen the light of day if their inventors had played
it safe. They challenged the status quo and didn’t look for the easy
way out. They fostered an environment for innovation by encourag‐
ing collaboration and originality, as well as thinking outside of the
box. Servant leaders lead through openness and a willingness to ask
for ideas. They don’t shut people down when new ideas are presen‐
ted. However, people must be given the time to be creative and
innovative in order for the organization to reap the rewards. That
means the organization as a whole must buy in and support this
process as well.
Leading by Taking Risks: Richard Drew

Drew was a 22-year-old with no education,19 but possessed an
eagerness to learn and an insatiable curiosity. 3M hired him to sell
sandpaper to auto body shop owners, one of the company’s flagship
products at the time. One day when he was out on his sales calls, he
met with a rather aggravated shop owner who was upset about the
3M tape they were using to do custom two-tone painting. These
paint jobs were very labor-intensive and commanded top dollar,
because of their popularity at the time. However, they were very
hard to achieve, because the tape in use was too strong and would
19 Crockett, Zachary. “The Man Who Invented Scotch Tape”, December 30, 2014.
Accessed September 17, 2017.

rip off the paint as it was removed. This caused a lot of rework, and
the paint shop employees spent many hours using 3M sandpaper
and touch-up paint to correct the flaws. That day, Drew vowed to
find a solution for the body shop owner, even though he had no
formal engineering background.
For more than two years, he worked diligently in his spare time to
come up with a tape that would solve the problem. His direct super‐
visor constantly discouraged his efforts. He did not believe Drew
should be spending his time on such an effort, and would not pay
for a machine to mass produce the tape he had invented. Instead, he
purchased the parts in increments just underneath his $99 spending
limit, and assembled the machine himself. The end result was
Scotch Brand Masking Tape, which was an overnight success. How
many of us have used this product? I for one can say, having moved
at least seven times in my life, that I have used reams of the stuff
and love it!
When Drew’s boss later found out what he had been up to, instead
of scolding him, he rewarded him by issuing the following mandate
at 3M:
If you have the right person on the right project, and they are
absolutely dedicated to finding a solution—leave them alone.
Tolerate their initiative and trust them.20
As a result of his work ethic and innovative spirit, 3M issued a
directive to provide all employees with time (15 percent of their
workday) to explore ideas outside of their regular work assign‐
ments. The amazing thing is that these events took place between
1931 to 1933 and even today, 3M gives its employees time to inno‐
vate on a daily basis.
Exhibits empathy and acceptance

The old saying that states, “You really don’t know what a man has
gone through until you have walked a mile in his shoes,” is a very
true statement. However, empathy is one of the most greatly misun‐
derstood qualities of humankind. To put yourself in someone else’s
place and truly understand what they are going through is the dif‐
ference between sympathy and empathy. To be a leader that people
want to follow, you must exhibit empathy. It makes you genuine and
20 Ibid., Crockett.

real, as well as accessible. An empathic leader accepts people for who
they are and what they are about, as well as being realistic as to what
they can achieve and how much they can be challenged, stretched,
and grown. However, pushing someone beyond their limits or set‐
ting unrealistic expectations is a sure way to push your followers
away.
Developing empathy is not an easy thing to do. It means first taking
stock of yourself, and truly evaluating who you are, what you are
about, and what strengths, weaknesses, and talents you possess. It
means understanding your vulnerabilities. To be strong, sometimes
we need to be or appear weak; not weak in the sense of ineffective,
actually just the opposite. Empathy is about showing your followers
that you can be vulnerable, which accentuates being approachable. It
is the very essence of what makes a leader want to serve. To empa‐
thize drives us to want to improve the followers’ state of being, for
the good of both the individual and company as a whole.
A True Story: Sammy, the Senior Consultant

Sammy was a bright, ambitious young man. He was the first person
in his family to graduate from college. His personality was that of a
classic overachiever who set out to make a name for himself as
quickly as possible. He pushed himself to work long hours, set
unrealistic standards when it came to his coworkers, and dropped
the names of senior leaders to get his coworkers to do what he
wanted them to do for his own benefit and advancement. Sammy
would have been described by those around him as being cocky,
arrogant, self-serving, a lone wolf, or a show boater.
As a result, he quickly established himself as someone no one
wanted to follow, which was unfortunate, because Sammy did have
true potential for becoming a leader. He had excellent written com‐
munication skills, technical and business acumen, and he was quick
with a joke and possessed a lot of charisma, which when his guard
was down, made him very pleasant to be around. However, that was
all negated because of the style he chose to employ, which wasn’t
going to get him to where he wanted to be: a recognized leader.
When I took over the team Sammy was a member of, I spent some
time observing him, as well as fielding complaints from his cowork‐
ers on everything from his communication style; to the name drop‐
ping; to his disruptive nature in meetings due to his cockiness and
arrogance. Unfortunately, after validating much of the behavior that

was brought to my attention, I decided to have a talk with him. I
shared my first experience out of college managing a group of peo‐
ple that on the average were 20 to 30 years my senior. I too was the
first person to graduate from college on my mom’s side, and the
first woman to obtain an MBA on my dad’s side. Coming out of col‐
lege, just like Sammy, I felt like I had a lot to prove as well. And at
first, my approach to leadership was much like Sammy’s. I truly
empathized with him and what he was going through at the time.
For me, it got so bad that I finally called home in tears to my very
wise father and asked him what I was doing wrong. My father was a
very successful businessman and viewed by the community I grew
up in as a true leader and all-around “stand-up kind of guy.” In his
soft and comforting way, he told me “Honey, you can’t force people
to follow you. You must understand what motivates them, truly
empathize with them, and give them a reason to trust and follow
you. You haven’t done that, and you haven’t won their respect.”
My story hit Sammy like a ton of bricks. By sharing my story, being
candid and vulnerable myself, I built empathy and rapport with
Sammy until he felt comfortable enough to confide in me.
At that point, we set out to put together a development plan that
would get Sammy back on track. I held weekly coaching sessions
with him and did on-the-fly mentoring as he tackled tricky situa‐
tions with his peers and superiors. Six months later, I nominated
him for a promotion and almost his entire team wrote letters of rec‐
ommendation. I still hear from Sammy every once in a while. He
holds the position of Vice President of Development in a very large
Software-as-a-Service company.
Moral of the story: sometimes you must be strong enough to be
weak to be able to see someone else’s bigger picture. By putting
yourself in someone else’s shoes, and looking at the situation from
that angle, it gives you a clearer understanding of what is really
going on. By empathizing, instead of jumping to conclusions as to
Sammy’s behavior, I was able to get to the root cause, address the
situation, and create a win/win for all of us.
Empathy means acceptance as well. When you say, “I understand

and accept you for who you are, right now, right here,” you are
acknowledging that everyone is not created equal. You accept them
for who they are—their authentic selves. Cookie-cutter molds don’t
exist for people and diversity abounds in today’s workforce. Every‐

one is not created the same and people process the world around
them through their past experiences, which makes us unique. Serv‐
ant leaders embrace that uniqueness and understand the gifts that
each of us possess.
Bringing out the best in people is about empathizing in the here and
now concerning what they can and cannot realistically accomplish,
which ultimately builds trust. Set your people up for success, and
support and nurture them as they move through their careers.
Come from a position of service, and you will build relationships
that last a lifetime, as well as experiencing the immensely fulling
feeling of serving others as you help them find their way.
Embodies humility and tolerance

Tolerance is born out of failure and suffering. You can only empa‐
thize with someone if you put yourself in their shoes. If you’ve never
failed at anything, then you haven’t pushed yourself hard enough.
The only way teams can grow is by trying new things. Not every ini‐
tiative will be successful, and how you react to failure is crucial to
your people. Work with them to figure out why the failure happened
and adjust. Encourage learning from mistakes and failures as a posi‐
tive thing, building the understanding that succeeding every time is
not realistic. And, do not employ the “win at any cost” mentality or
sacrifice your morals and values. When you come from a position of
genuine humility, you will be viewed as genuine, which amplifies
your credibility.
Practices mindfulness
Servant leadership focuses on serving the common good. It means
releasing your ego and letting go to tap into the collective conscious‐
ness and wisdom of the team. To give a voice to everyone as equals,
havingthe same potential to contribute and influence the direction
of the team. It means the unification of individuals into a common
whole for the collective good. Mindfulness is about being in a state
of heightened consciousness or awareness. It means being in the
here and now—or, in other words, being present! In our fast-paced
society of sensory overload, mindfulness can be hard to achieve.
There is so much stimuli coming at us every waking minute of the
day that even focusing in for five minutes at a time can be difficult
for many. Being still in mind so that you can focus is extremely
important when it comes to being an effective leader.

For example, when I am at a client site working with my team, I
must be present in mind, not just in body. I owe it to both my client
and my team. As a leader, I must constantly be perceiving and inter‐
preting the interactions and events that are happening all around
me, and unconsciously synthesizing them to understand what my
team and client need to solve the problems that brought us there in
the first place. At times, especially as I grapple to understand the
problem and make logical sense of it all, admittedly it is sensory
overload. If I start from a place of chaos, that is my point of refer‐
ence and my effectiveness is diminished. If I start from a place
where my mind is still, and I allow my unconscious mind to engage,
my intuition and perception experience a heightened sense of
awareness. I put aside all the clutter in my mind that adds little to
the tasks at hand, so I can focus on the immediate problem.
Athletes call it “being in the zone,” and as an avid runner and cyclist,
I know this feeling well! My ability to serve in the moment is greatly
magnified, because I am present in the moment. I experience greater
clarity, creativity, perception, emotional intelligence, empathy, and
compassion. The end result: I am much more effective and more
capable of leading from a place of calmness and mindfulness. What
I am able to accomplish is elevated, because I am deescalating the
chaos, and both internally and externally focusing on developing the
solution.
Also, be mindful of what you say and do. As discussed earlier, your
followers are watching and listening. Remember, you lead by exam‐
ple through both your words and actions. Case in point, if your
company is undergoing an Agile transformation, and you don’t fully
support it, this is going to come through loud and clear in what you
say and do. Merely going through the motions of support will seem
artificial, false, or ungenuine. It is better to voice your concerns and
objections by laying them out on the table. Tap into your uncon‐
scious mind by understanding where your objections are coming
from, and truly explore what is motivating your words and behavior.
Challenge yourself to dig deep and ask the tough questions, wher‐
ever they are coming from. Then, find the person in your organiza‐
tion that can address them. If you are questioning the
transformation, others are probably doing the same thing.
As a transformational change agent, I’ve heard some very valid rea‐
sons and blockers around transforming to Agile ways of working.
And it has helped my team and I address those things right up front.

Serve the common good and get to the bottom of why it is unset‐
tling for you. Then share your journey and the end result with oth‐
ers. If your points are valid, then work to solve them for the
collective whole and greater good of the organization. If not, face
your fears and change your mental model. In my experience, leaders
don’t silently undermine change initiatives, but managers do. Make
the choice to be ahead of the change curve, once you deal with your
own objections and understand why the change is necessary. Then
help others accomplish the same thing.
To calm your mind and elevate yourself above both the internal and
external chaos present in the world today, you must find time to be
reflective and introspective on a daily basis. Take the last 30 minutes
of your day to still your mind and ground yourself through medita‐
tion and reflection. Overall, you will find it gives you greater clarity
and calmness of mind. When the going gets tough and tough deci‐
sions need to be made, you’ll be able to focus in and make better
decisions, because of this calmness.
It’s hard to explain until you experience it for yourself. Personally, I
didn’t much believe in this technique until I tried it for myself. I was
having drinks with a colleague one evening and was explaining to
her the anxiety I felt about all the things I needed to get done and
how stressed out it made me feel. She recommended this meditative
technique to me. At first, just a few minutes was really hard for me
to accomplish. Then, little by little, I was able to work up to 15
minutes, then 30, and eventually to 45 minutes; not daily of course,
but when I have the time, I do the longer increments, usually on the
weekends. About six months later, I had dinner with her again and
she actually noticed the difference in my personality and presence. I
was more “posed” and there was a sense of calmness about me that
wasn’t there before. It worked! I did feel calmer, less stressed, and
more in tune with my mental and emotional states and abilities. My
mind felt sharper and less chaotic than it did just six months ago.
Then, take the next 15 minutes to do a daily retrospective and ask
yourself:
• What worked well today?

• What didn’t work so well?
• How can I improve on things tomorrow?

Just like a Scrum team, practice inspection and adaption on a per‐
sonal level to continuously evolve your leadership abilities. Build
your own impediments backlog and work to solve what is blocking
your forward progress and how you can learn and adjust to make
improvements to become the best leader possible.
Leverages common sense and intuition

Common sense and intuition are the intangibles of leadership that
aren’t measured from an academic perspective. Our past experiences
and who we are affects our ability to serve and lead. Locked away in
our unconscious minds are vast amounts of knowledge, that if
accessed, allow us to function at a much higher level. Science calls
these cognitive schemas that help us process the events that happen
to us in the world. Based on past experience and events, your degree
or ability to access your common sense or take advantage of intu‐
ition hinges on what you learned from those past events. That is
what we call common sense and intuition. That is why practicing
inspection and adaption is so important to serve well. You must
learn from past experiences and recognize their potential to affect
your present situations.
Leaders sometimes must make decisions on hunches or with less
than 100 percent of the required information. In these situations,
servant leaders need to rely on common sense or intuition at times
to bridge that gap. What “feels” right to them based on past experi‐
ence or a feeling of somehow “knowing” the right course of action.
Or, in other words, to employ their best judgment. To some, this will
come naturally, to others, not so much. Practice being conscious and
aware as you go about your day. Practice meditation and reflection
to still your mind and learn from your daily interactions. Learn
from the past, live in the present, and always seek to improve on
your future. That is how you will develop the common sense and
intuition that will establish you as the type of leader who people will
willingly follow.
Faces challenges head on

Servant leaders encourage risk taking in themselves and others. To
think outside of the box and put themselves in challenging situa‐
tions. To accept both failure and success as a natural part of the pro‐
cess. To embrace a willingness to experiment and fail, then pivot or
experiment again until there is a breakthrough. Or until the realiza‐

tion that the effort needs to be abandoned, because all the options
have been exhausted.
There is no shame in cutting your losses and it takes a lot of courage
to separate yourself from something that at one time you thought
was a great idea. Wise business people do it every day, addressing
failure as a learning experience, and not beating themselves up or
dwelling on it by going back over it in your mind time after time.
Don’t let the fear of failure get in your way. Take both the risk of fail‐
ure, along with the chance for success, as possible, realistic out‐
comes. Then accept whatever happens and believe you gave it your
all, whether it succeeded or failed. The point is, recognize that you
challenged yourself in the first place and took the risk head on,
instead of playing it safe.
Possesses decision-making capabilities

Making well-informed, objective decisions is one of your biggest
responsibilities as a leader, and the most demonstrative way of lead‐
ing is through your decision-making capabilities. Not making the
tough calls doesn’t mean they don’t get made. It means that someone
below you will have to make them. Someone who possesses less
information than you, but must make the decision so that the team
can move forward.
Not making decisions displays a lack of conviction. Leaders must
have conviction, and not be conflicted. It’s OK to collect facts and
others’ opinions to build consensus so that your decisions are fact-
based, objective, and unemotional. However, if you think you can
just float along, wing it, push out taking a stand, or skip making a
crucial decision, think again! It doesn’t work that way. You don’t get
the luxury of passing the buck, and through this behavior, you’re let‐
ting both your team and yourself down.
Passing on making decisions builds a culture of indifference, as
those who observe your behavior follow your lead. Remember, your
people are watching. When crucial decisions are pushed too far
down in the organization, many relevant data points could possibly
be unavailable. This means major errors in judgment could occur,
sending the team in the wrong direction.
There is no place for ego in the decision-making process, so leave it
at the door. Servant leaders truly develop the skill of being direct
and expressing their point of view. Not in a forceful or threatening

way, but through collaboration, concise communication, active lis‐
tening, and facilitation. It’s better to be clear, and sometimes wrong,
then indecisive. Having a point of view and expressing it to gain
buy-in or to work through the problem with your team, establishes
trust and a track record of collaboration and respecting others. I
always tell my direct reports if you make a decision and it turns out
to be an incorrect one, as long as you can back it up with the
thoughts and reasoning behind why you went in that direction, I
will support you to the end at whatever the cost. At least you made
the decision, and in some way, the team moved forward.
If this happens to you, it’s your opportunity to exercise compassion
and self-restraint. Turn it into a learning opportunity, and view it as
a teaching moment. Coach your people and show them how the
decision-making process works. Course corrections are not the end
of the world and no one is expected to be right all the time. Perfec‐
tion is an illusion that you must not buy into and support within
your corporate culture. It sets people up to fail and causes finger
pointing. A “culture of blame” is a very destructive thing and
extremely anti-Agile.
Another True Story: The “Know-it-All” Boss

I once worked for a boss who would call all the senior leaders into a
meeting once a week, under the guise of talking through the depart‐
ment’s pressing issues to come to consensus on how best to solve
them. Being new to the team, at first I was very excited about the
opportunity to participate in these meetings. However, I quickly
figured out that this was a “check the box” exercise for my boss, and
there wasn’t going to be any real collaboration happening. About 30
minutes into the first meeting, I realized these meetings were going
to be nothing more than us spending a very painful hour listening
to only him talk. If someone tried to interject or add to his mono‐
logue, he would say, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to your point in a
minute.”
The irony in all of this was that at the end of each meeting, he
would stand up (as if he was now done with us) and always say,
“Good talk! Let’s do it again next week,” and walk out of the room
as fast as humanly possible. Overall, he exhibited behavior that told
us he did not care what we thought. As a result of that move, he lost
a lot of credibility in the lower ranks because it became obvious to
our staff that he only cared about one thing: himself. The depart‐

ment’s effectiveness suffered because he was making decisions in a
vacuum, with only partial information.
The moral of the story: people don’t follow leaders that ignore, dis‐
respect, or don’t engage them in the decision-making process. The
leader in this example was not a leader at all. He was a manager,
pushing his edicts and commands out to his staff with little regard
as to the quality of those decisions and the consequences of his
actions. He prescribed to the thought that he had to have all the
answers and he had to be right all of the time. A mark of a good
leader is to realize you don’t need to have all the answers, be right
all of the time, or not ask for help. And actually, being wrong at
times and admitting you don’t have all the answers is not a sign of
weakness; rather, it displays the ability to be vulnerable and to
empathize with your employees. It also builds character, experience,
and displays your human side, turning you into the kind of leader
that people want to follow…willingly.
Leaders must also be able to confidently deliver both good as well as

bad news. Not all decisions will be popular with your followers.
Being a leader is not a popularity contest. Remember, you are
making decisions for the collective whole, not a small group of
individuals.
Making the Unpopular Decision: Vanessa Hope

Schneider, VP of Marketing at One Medical
When Vanessa Schneider made the decision to do away with a
“work from home on Fridays” policy, she didn’t exactly make most
of the staff happy with her decision.21 When challenged, she
expressed her reasoning and point of view that the rest of the com‐
pany didn’t realize what her organization did. To correct this situa‐
tion, her people needed to be visible and collectively show them,
instead of telling the rest of the organization. That meant being in
the office five days a week. Vanessa stated, “This is a publicity cam‐
paign on behalf of our own team. Most people got it, even if they
21 Hope, Vanessa Schneider. “‘Pitch the Immeasurable’ and Other Leadership Tips”. First‐
Round.com. Accessed October 7, 2017.

initially didn’t like the change. The point is that, with context, it
wasn’t punitive or arbitrary.”22
The moral of the story: not all decisions a leader makes are going to
be taken well, which means unpopular decisions need context.
Merely communicating bad news without the “why” behind it
makes the message even harder to grasp. Servant leaders want their
people to understand that part of being a leader sometimes means
making and delivering unpopular decisions. Vanessa realized her
group had a perception problem, and as their leader she made this
decision for the good of the team. By explaining the reasoning
behind it, she was able to at least facilitate understanding. That
didn’t change the fact that the decision was unpopular, but at least
her people understood why she made the policy change.
Understands the importance of being proactive

Stephen R. Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
stated that if leaders want their teams to behave and respond in a
proactive way, they must be constantly synthesizing the present to
anticipate the future, by learning from the past.23 In other words, to
be proactive and confront issues before they become major errors in
judgment. Knowing when to act is just as important as how to act.
Being proactive is even more important today because of the rapid
rate of change. Information travels at the speed of light within our
society. Leaders must stay current with social and economic trends
on a global level. The stakes are very high, because a failure to act
may result in the loss of competitive advantage that could cause the
demise of the organization. Sitting on yesterday’s successes just
doesn’t cut it any more. Either be green and growing, or ripe and
rotting. Those are the only two choices in today’s disruptive business
climate.
Practices active listening

Servant leaders automatically respond to problems by listening first.
To truly solve a problem and not just look for someone to blame,
you must effectively identify its root cause and solve for that, not its
22 Ibid., Hope.
23 Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Free Press, 2004).

symptoms. Listening instead of immediately reacting also differenti‐
ates servant leaders from other types of leaders, because they take
the time to fully understand the problem and how people are affec‐
ted and impacted by it. They care about what others think the prob‐
lem might be by listening to them. This builds respect and trust on
both sides.
Actual communication is about both listening and speaking. Many
leaders are under the impression they are supposed to speak more
than listen, which reinforces their authority and expectation that
they “have all the answers.” In Agile environments, leaders are not
expected to be omniscient. It is the collective wisdom of the team
that elicits the best problem-solving methods. A servant leader taps
into this collective wisdom and solves problems through consensus,
instead of mandate.
A servant leader also realizes that silence is an option that allows
others to voice their opinion, as well as ask questions and come up
with solutions. Living in that silence can be one of the hardest things
a leader must learn to do. They must let go of the notion that he or
she needs to be the one that is always speaking. Communication is a
dialogue, not a monologue. A servant leader listens, understands the
power of asking questions, summarizes, and then forms a conclu‐
sion. There is a general misconception that the one who is speaking
is in control of the conversation. That is truly not the case, because
the one asking the questions is actually leading the conversation. So,
becoming a great asker of questions hones your listening skills, and
allows you to collect information and observe behavior. When exer‐
cising critical thinking skills during the decision-making process,
keep in mind that a lot of times it’s not what people say that is
important—rather, it is how they say it that counts.
Understands the art of facilitation

Servant leaders understand how to facilitate conversations to get the
best out of people. They facilitate the bringing together of individu‐
als that can collectively solve problems together. They moderate
conversations through asking open-ended questions that spark true
conversation, as well as building mutual respect. They arbitrate disa‐
greements and handle differences in opinions in respectful and pro‐
active ways by validating others’ viewpoints, instead of trying to
push their point to create a personal win. Validating and really lis‐
tening to contradicting opinions, instead of discounting them just

because they aren’t your own, creates a “win/win” situation for
everyone.
It also means asking “What can I do to make my team’s work eas‐
ier?”, then going about the task of solving whatever impediment that
is blocking forward movement. As a servant leader, you are there to
facilitate resolutions to issues and remove impediments for the
team. In short, to make their work lives better, no matter at what
level you lead within an organization. Servant leaders constantly
seek out opportunities to facilitate and achieve greater work/life bal‐
ance for their followers.
Acts as teacher, coach, and mentor

Acting as a teacher, coach, and mentor goes hand in hand with
being a servant leader. The intention of each is to help people
become better at whatever they do, as well as to help develop them‐
selves. All involve spending time helping people improve through
sharing knowledge, wisdom, and life experiences to help overcome
challenges and obstacles. Servant leaders give freely of their time
and genuinely care for those they serve. The passion to be the best
person possible, as well as helping others develop themselves, comes
naturally to servant leaders.
Another True Story: The Importance of Mentoring

Relationships
I was recently a part of a panel that spoke at an event sponsored by
Women Empowered, a national organization for working women
of all ages to come together and learn from one another. The topic
of discussion was “Women in Leadership.” The panel consisted of a
dean, CIO, two senior directors, and myself (at the time, I was a VP
within a software development company). The first question posed
to the panel was “If you had the chance, what would you tell your
younger self, based on what you know now?” Overwhelmingly the
answer from 4 out of 5 of us was to seek out a mentor.
I personally owe my career to a woman who hired me into my first
IT job. I knew very little about computers, but she saw something
in me and decided to place her bet and roll the dice. Once hired
into the organization, she willingly and without me asking for help,
assumed the role of mentor, assisting me with my career develop‐
ment. Without her help, I would have been years behind, because I

wasn’t “savvy” to the ways of the corporate world. I had no role
models, either female or male, to help me along the way until I met
Catherine, three years into my career.
It was kismet and she became my teacher, coach, and mentor. She
encouraged me to go to grad school, to find my voice and speak up
in meetings, share my ideas, and to speak my mind. She helped me
understand the difference between good and great, which was very
important because I was inside a company that only hired the top
10% of college grads. I felt very honored to be a part of that, how‐
ever it was hard to stand out in a field of such talented and smart
individuals. Catherine helped me with that, putting me on visible
and mission-critical projects. As a result, I rose very quickly up the
corporate ladder within the company, working directly with the C-
Suite in my mid-twenties. A year after I started, I was managing a
team of 15 and routinely reporting progress on our projects to our
senior leadership.
I will always be grateful for and consider myself lucky to have been
mentored and coached by a very successful servant leader that gave
of herself so freely to mold and shape me into the businesswoman I
am today. I wish I could sit here and tell you that all of this was very
deliberate on my part, but that isn’t the truth. I never asked her for
help, which was my mistake and something I would tell my younger
self to do in a conscious manner. Every month, I devote about three
to four hours mentoring others. I run across potential mentees dur‐
ing my speaking engagements, consulting jobs, and the companies I
work for. They are mostly young women (I’d mentor young men as
well, but rarely get asked to do so) under the age of 35 in the tech‐
nology field. Every time I am asked, I feel honored and humbled
that they view me as someone to seek guidance and advice from. I
think I get more out of it than they do, because I truly enjoy the
time I spend mentoring others.
The moral of the story: seek out successful people that you admire
and ask them if they will mentor you. We’ve all at one time or
another in our career received help, whether we’ve asked for it or
not. And don’t be afraid to ask. The worst thing that can happen is
that the person says no. If that happens, don’t take it personally;
keep asking around until you find the right person. Also bear in
mind that it does represent a time commitment, and in the long
run, you’d be better off with someone that can give you the time
and attention required to be an effective mentor.

Engages in lifelong learning
Dr. Edward Deming, the father of Quality, in his book Out of Crisis
said24:
Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is
required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid
and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are
doomed to disappointment.
Deming’s words say it all: being a lifelong learner is a must for a
servant leader!
Learning, especially through reading, plays a crucial part in a lead‐
er’s development, because it generates a constant flow of new ideas,
spurs intellectual thought, and keeps the mind sharp. Albert Mohler
in his book The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that
Matters states, “When you have found a leader, you have found a
reader.” He goes on to say that, “there is no substitute for effective
reading when it comes to developing and maintaining the intelli‐
gence necessary to lead.”25
Reading by Example: Bill Gates

Bill Gates is well known to be an avid reader. He reads an average of
an hour a day and about 50 books a year.26 That’s about 7 hours per
book, which is a phenomenal reading rate! He says reading is his
favorite way to learn about a new topic.27 Gates is so enamored with
reading that he publishes a blog entitled Gates Notes-Books, where
he offers reading suggestions and publishes his thoughts on the
books he has read. His summer reading list is published in The New
York Times every year, and he is also a well-published author, with
over 20 books to his credit.
24 W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (MIT Press, 1982).

25 Mohler, Albert. The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters
(Bethany House Publishing, 2012). Chapter 12, “Leaders Are Readers.”
26 Elkins, Kathleen. “Bill Gates says ‘This Is the Book Every College Grad Needs to Read.’”
May 17, 2017. Accessed October 28, 2017.
27 Ibid., Elkins.

Maintains a sustainable work pace
Just like Agile teams, leaders need to maintain a sustainable work
pace. Always being on high alert—or worse yet, creating fires, is a
sure way to quickly burn yourself out (as well as burning out your
followers). Limit your own work in progress (WIP), and don’t over‐
commit. If you are constantly running full out, ask yourself “Do I
have the energy to handle an unforeseen emergency or problem?” If
the answer is “no,” then you need to seek a better balance. Make
whatever changes are necessary to bring your WIP down, until you
can achieve a steady work pace that you can maintain in the long
run.
Steps to Building a Culture of Servant

Leadership
Establishing a culture of servant leadership is a must for Agile
organizations. However, what are the steps to accomplishing this
task? The following discussion on the five steps offers assistance in
answering this question.
Step 1: Develop Your Strategic Decision-Making

Framework
The first step is to take a holistic perspective and invite your cus‐
tomers, partners, and vendors to sit down with your workforce and
hold a conversation concerning where you want to go (mission),
what the future you want to build looks like (vision), and what value
are you attempting to create (value proposition). If you don’t know
where you are going, what that journey looks like, or how you will
measure success, the results you achieve will be mediocre and
inconsistent at best.
I know, it sounds so simple, but you’d be surprised how many large
organizations can’t answer these questions in a simple and concise
manner. To develop servant leaders, they must understand the stra‐
tegic direction of the company, in order to serve it in the most effec‐
tive way possible. Having a strategic framework that everyone
understands allows decisions to be made at the level where the work
is performed. And because Agile organizations rely very heavily on
the success of the teams, you are effectively empowering the entire
Steps to Building a Culture of Servant Leadership | 35

organization to make good decisions based on facts instead of
conjecture.
Step 2: Redesign the Operating Model to Embrace an

Agile Mindset
There are no ifs, ands, or buts…restructuring the organization is a
must! If you leave the structure alone and think you’re going to
affect change, you are very mistaken. As long as there is a “bridge”
back to the old ways of working, lasting change will not be possible.
Shut the door on going back to these old ways of working. The only
way to affect cultural change is to take people out of their comfort
zones. Empower the teams through self-organization and reward
mastery, autonomy, and purpose.
Step 3: Conduct Company-Wide Training on Servant

Leadership and Team Dynamics
Develop a training plan to teach managers how to lead from a serv‐
ant perspective. Build a curriculum that focuses on the 15 traits that
servant leaders must possess outlined earlier. Make sure you develop
training that is scenario-based, instead of being driven by lecture-
based instruction. The participants must role play and try out the
traits in a safe, non-judging environment, before trying to imple‐
ment them in the workplace. The more they practice, the better they
will become, and both their comfort level and confidence will
increase.
Reaching back to traditional leadership theories to train today’s
leaders is also a very relevant strategy. Traditional leadership think‐
ing is very relevant today. Appendix A contains a recommended
reading list of 15 classic leadership and management books that are
still very relevant and worth reading for today’s servant leaders.
Step 4: Institute Leadership Scrum Teams and Hold

Them Accountable
To effect change, you must model the behavior you want at the very
top of the organization. Remember, you must lead by example. The
best way to do that is to train your leadership teams at every level on
how to operate within the Scrum Framework. Build Scrum boards
in very obvious, and easy to access places, and make everything visi‐

ble and transparent. Hold the teams accountable for achieving
results by burning down their backlogs and removing impediments.
Step 5: Implement the New Model and “Burn the

Bridge” Behind You
Burning the bridge behind you means making a lot of tough
choices. As Greenleaf put it so many years ago, the difference
between a person who wants to lead from a position of power versus
being a true servant leader “manifests itself in the care taken by the
servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs
are being served.”28
As leaders, that is your job. To serve your customers, workforce, and
organization to the best of your ability. You must make the decisions
that are truly best for everyone. The question then becomes: do your
actions make those you serve better off? By helping them to become
enlightened, empowered, and autonomous, they in turn will help
others to do the same. That is how a culture of servant leadership is
born, through example and through your own behavior.
Conclusion
When casting off the chains of old structures and outdated ways of
working, you must leave your ego at the door and as Nike says, “Just
do it!” Taking this leap of faith is the first step in becoming an Agile
leader. You must think of others first and foremost, because that is
what leaders do. Embracing a servant attitude and thinking about it
from the perspective of what’s best for everyone is the essence of
servant leadership.
If you come from this perspective, you will be seen as a leader by
those that will end up following you. However, a following is some‐
thing that must be earned. True leadership is not something that is
bestowed; it is earned.
Conclusion | 37
A Historical Perspective: Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Before he was the 26th President of the United States at the age of
42, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., was a naturalist, historian, strategist,
author, explorer, and soldier. Having been born with asthma, he
overcame his illness by becoming a naturalist, epitomizing the true
meaning of masculinity during his time. He is also one of the truly
great servant leaders in history.
When the Spanish–American War broke out in 1898, he resigned
his commission as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to form the first
US volunteer cavalry regiment. When his call went out for volun‐
teers, he was flooded with applications from all over the country to
form the Rough Riders, as the press of the day called them.
On July 1, 1989, he led the now infamous charge up Kettle Hill in
Cuba. Roosevelt commented on his role in the battle:
On the day of the big fight I had to ask my men to do a deed that
European military writers considered utterly impossible of per‐
formance, that is, to attack over open ground an unshaken infan‐
try armed with the best modern repeating rifles behind a
formidable system of entrenchments. The only way to get them
to do it in the way it had to be done was to lead them myself.29
Being a band of volunteers, not one single soldier in his regiment
“had” to follow Roosevelt up that hill. And, they didn’t follow him
because of his formal authority. They followed because of his genu‐
ine ability to serve and to come from a position of having their best
interest at heart. After all, it was a matter of life and death, and they
trusted and respected him so much they were willing to lay down
their lives. In the end, they won… together, even though 200 men
lost their lives that day with Roosevelt himself leading the charge on
horseback. Serving as an example and modeling the behavior he
was seeking, in return, his men responded. Leaders can be born and
made, but the only way to earn your following is through genuine
service to others.
It is not easy to become a servant leader. It means truly taking stock

of your strengths and weaknesses. To sit quietly and reflect on who
you are and what you are about, then proactively making the
29 Henry William Brands, TR: The Last Romantic (Basic Books, 1997).

changes required to shift to a servant leader’s mindset. It requires
leaving your fears at the door, and developing a sense of urgency to
drop the command-and-control mindset and embrace servant lead‐
ership, by developing and/or realigning your company’s priorities to
compete in the digital era. Living in the black and white is a fallacy,
and becoming comfortable in the grey is a must, as well as dropping
the belief that you can control change.
Understand that championing change is the “new normal” and that
change comes from the behaviors at the top. If it is not supported
through the behavior, actions, and attitudes of a company’s leaders,
it will not be lasting change. Engage not only your customer, but
workforce as well. In an age of complexity, embrace simplicity. Paul
Bellack, VP of Global IT and CIO, Magna International, says to keep
things simple so that people can quickly grasp your message, and
then communicate it over and over again, until everyone in the
organization “gets it.”30
A Final Thought… Charge!

If you picked a “metaphorical” hill to charge up and do battle for
your company’s survival, would the people you serve follow you?
30 Heller, Martha. “Building shared services in a culture of fierce decentralization”. The

Heller Report. October 4, 2017.
Conclusion | 39
APPENDIX A
15 Classic “Must Reads” for
Servant Leaders
1. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

(reprinted by Pocket Books, 2008).
2. Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to
Getting Things Done (HarperCollins, 1967).
3. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Shambhala Press, 1988).
4. Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma (HarperBusi‐
ness, 1997).
5. Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence
(HarperCollins, 1982.)
6. Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management (reprinted by Vin‐
tage, 1995).
7. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, First, Break All the
Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
(Simon & Schuster, 1999).
8. Tom Peters, The Circle of Innovation (Vintage, 1997).
9. John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You (HarperCol‐
lins, 1993).
10. Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Free
Press, 2004).
11. Warren G. Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (Addison-Wesley,
1989).
41
12. W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (MIT Press, 1982).
13. Max De Pree, Leadership Jazz (Doubleday Business, 1992).
14. Martin Linsky and Ronald L. Heifetz, Leadership on the Line:
Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (revised edition;
Harvard Business Review Press, 2017).
15. Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management
(Harper and Brothers Publishing, 1911).
42 | Appendix A: 15 Classic “Must Reads” for Servant Leaders

About the Author
Jean Dahl has been a serial entrepreneur, consultant, thought leader,
and yes, even a corporate executive during her career. She possesses
extensive experience in building and managing multimillion dollar
global product portfolios, leading LeanStartup-at-scale transforma‐
tions, and leveraging Lean, Agile, and LeanStartup methods to
introduce enterprise agility into her Fortune 500 client base. A col‐
laborative, results-oriented senior executive, Jean is the Lean‐
Startup@Scale practice leader for Deloitte Consulting LLP’s
Technology, Strategy, and Transformation advisory group, possess‐
ing over 25 years in the fields of Strategy, Transformation, and Prod‐
uct and Portfolio Management.

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The Making of an

Beijing Boston Farnham Sebastopol Tokyo

Editor: Laurel Ruma Interior Designer: David Futato

January 2018: First Edition

Revision History for the First Edition

1. The Making of an Agile Leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

A. 15 Classic “Must Reads” for Servant Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Adapting a digital mindset is a must to stay competitive and

3 Wikipedia. “Strauss–Howe Generational Theory”. Accessed November 4, 2017.

2 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

Agile Is the Answer

The Agile Manifesto and Principles

Agile Is the Answer | 3

Individuals and interactions over process and tools

• Working in short increments and delivering products in an iter‐

They weren’t saying, however, that the things mentioned on the

5 The Agile Manifesto. Accessed November 3, 2017.

4 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

“Doing” versus “being” Agile

Agile delivers customer value

Agile Is the Answer | 5

Agile supports revenue-based thinking

6 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

Agile fosters innovation

Agile fits the 21st-century company

• Making satisfied customers the highest priority

Agile Is the Answer | 7

The Challenging Aspects of Agile for Leaders

8 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

8 World History Project. “Dot-Com Bubble timeline”. Accessed November 5, 2017.

The Challenging Aspects of Agile for Leaders | 9

Agile Is About Doing What I Say and Do as an Executive

10 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

Agile looks like the Wild Wild West

The Challenging Aspects of Agile for Leaders | 11

Agile is not a “silver bullet”

12 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

What Does “Being Agile” Mean to Leaders?

• Adopting a more collaborative and transparent leadership style

It means becoming a servant leader, and putting the team’s wants,

What Does “Being Agile” Mean to Leaders? | 13

12 Greenleaf, Robert K. “The Servant as Leader”. Greenleaf.org. Accessed October 8, 2017.

14 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

Agile Embraces Servant Leadership

Agile’s Foundation: Servant Leadership | 15

Servant leadership and “being Agile”

15 Traits of a Servant Leader

16 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

Leading by Example: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Agile’s Foundation: Servant Leadership | 17

Inspires action through vision and purpose

Leading by Action: Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com

18 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

Fosters innovation and creativity

Leading by Taking Risks: Richard Drew

Agile’s Foundation: Servant Leadership | 19

Exhibits empathy and acceptance

20 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

A True Story: Sammy, the Senior Consultant

Agile’s Foundation: Servant Leadership | 21

Empathy means acceptance as well. When you say, “I understand

22 | Chapter 1: The Making of an Agile Leader

Embodies humility and tolerance