I was teaching a CAL class last week in Nashville. During the class, I was sharing how important it is for leaders to “bring it” to work each and every day. I was referring to things like:

• Attitude

• Energy

• Passion

• Focus

• and Engagement

Someone challenged me about the notion. They said that they weren’t always upbeat every day. And that sometimes they simply had a bad day.

They also said that their personality wasn’t upbeat naturally, so it was hard for them to be a Happy Harry or a Positive Polly all of the time. I explained that I wasn’t referring to anything as extreme as that. But I did think that people were paying attention (close attention) to their leaders, their behaviors, and their attitudes.

That not “bringing it” for too many days in a row was the sign of a problem of some sort…

But it’s not just about energy and attitude. As I think about it, there are really six areas I want to explore where Culture-Shaping focused leaders make a difference in the culture by how they are Showing Up each and every day.

That’s where we’re going next.

I really like the work Frederic Laloux has contributed around organizational cultures. It provides a series of phases (colors) that reflect the cultural evolutionary paths of corporations (organizations).

Unfortunately, there are a couple of negative things that have evolved around it.

One is the relentless pursuit of “Teal” as a goal in the agile transformation community. I liken it to the enthusiasm around DevOps, Spotify, or SAFe in the pursuit of silver bullet solutions or bandwagons.

Another is the realization that Teal isn’t really a good goal, not is it that well-understood or well-references of a model. As alluded to in this article by Corporate-Rebels.

But the reason I wanted to explore it now is to illustrate a cultural phenomenon I’ve often seen in agile transformational contexts. And the Laloux model works nicely as a communications mechanism to explain cultural divisions, which is where we’re going next.

Minding the Gap

One of the things that I think is most useful about the model is how it can represent various stages in an organization. Let me share a story to make that point.

One of my areas of interest over the last 3-5 years is finding a model or tool that could help leaders with identifying their current leadership tendencies and then guide their evolution towards more agile culturally supportive behaviors.

I didn’t want it to be something that was so constricting or binary that it failed to give them guidance (and hope) for change. I also wanted it to be rooted in solid research and data. Finally, I wanted it to compliment my Certified Agile Leadership class (CAL I) and assist me in my leadership coaching efforts.

I explored two instruments/models that I found useful in meeting my criteria. One is the Leadership Agility assessment by Bill Joiner and the other was the Leadership Circle Profile assessment by TLC.

Neither of them is strictly related to agile software development, methods or business agility, as they are more general-purpose leadership assessment instruments. That being said, they both are incredibly helpful for leaders who are on an agile, Culture-Shaping journey.

While I was trained on both of them, I’ve selected the Leadership Circle Profile (for individual assessments) and the Collective Leadership Assessment (for groups/teams).

Both of them have at their core a set of competencies and tendencies that I wanted to explore in this post. Under the banner of Culture-Shaping, one of the first things that I think is helpful is to understand our personal “leanage” when it comes to our leadership stance. And these assessments really help with that. Please keep in mind that I’m not pushing the instruments, but the thinking behind them right now.

With All Due Respect

First, I want to state something that I didn’t in the first post.

I respect the role, art, craft, and challenges of leadership in agile contexts. I REALLY do! It’s not for the faint of heart and, in a word, it’s HARD!

So, when I provide leadership advice or perspective, I’m not providing it in a trivialized, marginalized, unempathetic, or judgmental fashion. I’m only trying to be helpful. Helpful to those leaders who are struggling with what it takes to lead in agile contexts. It’s those leaders who are my primary persona in everything I’ve written and will write around agile leadership.

Not that I’ve cleared that up…

Values First

Andy Bleach wrote a wonderful article entitled—Embracing Values – Agile’s Toughest Challenge. I’d never read anything from Andy before, so I was pleasantly surprised when I read it. And I thought it would be a nice addition to my thoughts around Leadership and Culture-Shaping.

Here’s the LinkedIn post with comments - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stefanwolpers_embracing-values-agiles-toughest-challenge-activity-6638782881915256832-bAAR

Where does culture come from?

• Is it a bottom-up thing?

• A top-down thing?

• An inside-out thing?

• Is it organic or intentional?

Depending on who you read, reference, or talk to the answer is…it depends. There’s also an allusion to the point that culture is highly complex and difficult to understand or influence.

But from my perspective, the answer is much clearer and simpler on both counts.

First, I believe that culture is largely dependent on leaders and their leadership. In fact, I believe leaders by far play the most significant role in the culture. Or in what I like to refer to as their responsibility in and for Culture-Shaping.

That if you look at any organization, really look at the culture within, it reflects the behavior of the leadership team in the cultural landscape or ecosystem.

How does that happen?

Well, with their vision, words, actions, expectations, commitments, behaviors, body language, and business goals. With what they choose to amplify as important and with what they choose to not amplify.

And second, I believe that culture is incredibly simple. Since it aligns with the leader’s actions, it simply requires focus and intent if you want to change or reshape your culture. And not in one big change, but via a myriad of small, everyday actions.