Being Agile demands a symphony between business and IT at the highest level, which needs to run as a slice across all the facets that are aligned to specific customer outcomes. There is no other way, except to have a perfectly orchestrated collaborative unit that is designed to deliver success not as a ' one single burst' but one that allows incremental development. This symphony creates continual value for the end customer as well as allowing teams to implement Kaizen.
However, being Agile is driven more by behavior modeling rather than just implementing a methodology of check boxes. It needs to integrate at the deepest level to ensure that there is continuum in aligned delivery and that requires people to integrate together as a feature team working together with a servant leadership approach. Anything other than this only creates a working facade which delivers, but never really aligns itself to generating teams that are charged to deliver business value.
For this to happen the acceptance of change of working together as a team extends beyond co-location and needs to be fashioned by roles that exist within any Agile framework. One of the key roles is that of a Product Owner.
On a measured scale of time, and given the scenarios a product owner can strongly influence the acceptance rate of being agile. He/she can be a strong trigger point and understanding the dynamics of a chosen leadership style at different points of time can help a smoother transition.
Its important to understand that there is no single style of leadership and real leaders adopt a flux model that freely allows them to create an environment which breeds change and continual improvement enabling collaborative self organising teams to excel.
Let us look at the three leadership styles from a singular point of view and its impact on acceptance of change
1. Aggressive Leadership : This leadership is characterized by a highly regimented and directive based approach that is highly focused on accomplishing specific tasks. While the acceptance rate is high, this is normally associated with a lot of distrust and dis-satisfaction among the collaborative teams. The teams quickly accept but fragment over time to dissolve the acceptance rate of change as it naturally harbours political agendas to match leadership behaviour.
2. Passive Leadership : This is usually characterized by a leader wanting to please and create an environment that is driven by lose decision making; often never enough and teams usually command outcomes. The acceptance rate of change is very slow in the beginning but it usually rationalises itself to have a balanced outcomes especially when deadlines are attached. This type of leadership usually blends itself well to organisations with a slow pace of change. And normally never does one stitch high performing teams as they are 'outcome attached' but not driven.
3. Assertive leadership : This is most preferred form to achieve rapid change that is aligned and deliver frequent quick outcomes. Teams under this leadership are often characterized by high performance, continuously evolving in collaboration, flexible and very outcome driven. However, no human behaviour is a straight line and this style requires carefully chosen actions that 'dictate' assertiveness and not aggression. The line is very thin and often blurred, but not something that cannot be achieved. It often requires proper coaching and mindfulness to ensure the skill is developed.
Collaborative teams are great but they get better if they are given the right environment to breed success to which a product owner can bring immense value.