What It Takes to Change Leadership Mindsets Changing leadership mindsets and behaviors requires effort. Leaders in established companies typically have achieved their position based on their experience, expertise, and skills. It’s common for them to sit atop a pyramid-style hierarchy. At the top, leaders are accustomed to making decisions to be carried out by those below them. As they manage from above, a ‘frozen middle’ layer—the people who work Area Traditional Leadership Competencies Agile Leadership Competencies (Change From) (Change To) Anticipatory Predict and control Sense and respond Abilities Responsibilities Making great decisions Helping teams make great decisions Source of Authority based on rank, experience, Skills in empowering others through Power and skills, expertise emotional intelligence, relationship Respect building, treating individuals as equals Focus of Focus on self Focus on others’ improvement Improvement Communicat- One-way, top-down communications Two-way communications and ions Direction peer relationships Focus of Hierarchy-driven decisions with Trust in teams to make team decisions Decisions multiple approval and verification steps Mistake Assign blame to those responsible for Learn from inevitable failures, celebrate Posture failure, creating culture of fear lessons, adapt, and move forward Leadership Focused on ‘outer game.’ Results A leader’s ‘internal operating system.’ Culture oriented meritocracy-based Focused on both the ‘outer game’ organization. Leaders’ reaction to (traditional leadership traits) and inner 15 followers: “You are only important to game (building trust with team me for what you are doing for me now. members, exhibiting emotional Our relationship really isn’t important intelligence and empathy). This beyond this moment in time.” leader says to team members: “You are important to me because of your 1 TK Footnote whole self, what you have done for me in the past, now, and in the future. Our relationship is important.” Such leadership empowers teams to focus on results. Figure 6: Changing Leadership Styles for Agile Organizations