between the very top executives and the front-line employees—typically play it safe. Fearing failure, these middle managers resist innovative ideas and new 16 perspectives. Lean-agile approaches call for the opposite decision-making style. In agile, teams organized around a product or issue make the decisions. Organizations made up of multiple agile teams are capable of quick, mid-course adjustments that enable the organization to sense and respond to customers and market stimuli. Teams experiment with solutions, learn from mistakes and improve with all subsequent iterations. For enterprises moving to lean-agile styles of leadership, individual leaders will have to bridge the gap between old styles and new. This will require training—coaching for the leaders who must empower teams to succeed—and the leaders’ personal commitment to make these changes. Teaching Successful Leaders How to be Agile Leaders are central to building and sustaining a lean-agile AaBbCc culture. Because many leaders have risen in a traditional hierarchy, they will exhibit behaviors that have made them successful in the past even as the organization commits to change its way of working. Changing those behaviors is challenging, and the reason why coaching is so important. Coaching begins by assessing an individual’s current leadership style and how that style can work in a lean-agile environment. It then helps a leader adopt new behaviors—new tools for engaging teams, empowering them to make decisions, and do their best work. Coaches help leaders who are accustomed to command- and-control, top-down decision-making, and adopting a lean-agile mindset. 15 Outer game and inner game part of the “conscious leadership’ concept cited in Mastering Leadership - An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results, Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adam, 2015 16 The Globe and Mail Inc., What is the Frozen Middle, and Why Should it Keep Leaders up at Night?, May 2, 2017, accessed March 13, 2018, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/leadership-lab/what-is- the-frozen-middle-and-why-should-it-keep-leaders-up-at-night/article34862887/