Agile Leadership in Collaborative Teams

Too often, I’ve been in a meeting where everyone agreed collaboration was essential—yet when it came to execution, things stalled. Silos persisted, friction rose, and progress felt painfully slow. A recent Harvard Business Review article highlights a frustrating truth: even the best-intentioned leaders struggle to work across functions. Why? Because traditional leadership development focuses on vertical leadership (managing teams) rather than lateral leadership (influencing peers across the business). The best cross-functional leaders operate differently. They don’t just lead their teams—they master LATERAL AGILITY: the ability to move side to side, collaborate effectively, and drive results without authority. The article suggests three strategies on how to do this: (1) Think Enterprise-First. Instead of fighting for their department, top leaders prioritize company-wide success. They ask: “What does the business need from our collaboration?” rather than “How does this benefit my team?” (2) Use "Paradoxical Questions" to Avoid Stalemates. Instead of arguing over priorities, they find a way to win together by asking: “How can we achieve my objective AND help you meet yours?” This shifts the conversation from turf battles to solutions. (3) “Make Purple” Instead of Pushing a Plan. One leader in the article put it best: “I bring red, you bring blue, and together we create purple.” The best collaborators don’t show up with a fully baked plan—they co-create with others to build trust and alignment. In my research, I’ve found that curiosity is so helpful in breaking down silos. Leaders who ask more questions—genuinely, not just performatively—build deeper trust, uncover hidden constraints, and unlock creative solutions. - Instead of assuming resistance, ask: “What constraints are you facing?” - Instead of pushing a plan, ask: “How might we build this together?” - Instead of guarding your function’s priorities, ask: “What’s the bigger picture we’re missing?” Great collaboration isn’t about power—it’s about perspective. And the leaders who master it create workplaces where innovation thrives. Which of these strategies resonates with you most? #collaboration #leadership #learning #skills https://lnkd.in/esC4cfjS

You poured money into your agile transformation. Your teams are busy. Standups, retros, all the ceremonies—check. The reports say velocity is up. But look past the new roles, the vanity metrics, the maturity assessments. It still feels slow. Where’s the business impact? The old playbook says double down. Fix the teams. Bring in more coaches. More training. Push the flywheel harder. But most leaders I talk to are out of patience—and out of budget. So they give up. The theater rolls on. The old project mindset creeps back in. Here’s the hard truth: You can’t fix this at the team level. The problem isn’t your teams. It’s the game they’re forced to play. After 15 years helping companies build real agility, here's a better pattern that emerged as more sustainable and effective: stop trying to fix the teams. Go upstream. Fix the system they’re stuck in. Start or Pivot to the company or portfolio level. Create a company-level initiatives Kanban. apply the patterns and best practices of product ownership at the portfolio level. Use Lean Product Management to derisk your enterprise bets. When leaders engage at this level, they stop being passengers in a transformation that’s happening to them. They become the drivers. They get the power to lead real change. They can set priorities and make tradeoffs that create clarity for dozens of teams. Suddenly, alignment and collaboration become possible. Autonomy and Purpose unlock motivation and engagement in the trenches. They can limit work in process. That creates focus. It signals real leadership. They can reorganize around outcomes. Break painful dependencies. Point capacity at what matters most. I’ve seen it firsthand. A few well-placed interventions upstream lead to outsized gains: faster delivery, more innovation, clearer teams, real value. This video is an excerpt from a case study where leaders at a global futures exchange changed the trajectory of their SAFe-based Product Operating Model transformation when we went upstream to introduce a product-oriented leaner portfolio management approach. Going upstream used to be the maverick move. Most consulting firms avoided it. (can you guess why? hint - think of their incentives / business model ) Now, it’s going mainstream. Leaders like you want real agility ROI—not vanity, not theater. What's one small way you could go upstream next week? (if you want some ideas - happy to discuss)

How I lead technical teams when I had no functional expertise – Shared Leadership! The complexity of business is increasing daily. The strains that exist for team leaders are exponentially more in the digital age than the industrial age. The good news is that you don’t need to have all the answers. You can be a leader of a team and leverage the leadership behaviors of your team members to get them more involved, give them experience leading, and outperform teams that rely solely on command-and-control tactics. When I led my Space Crew in the U.S. Army I had no knowledge of IT systems of SATCOM Equipment. The good news though, is that I could set the stage to learn, tie my team together to our collective purpose, and include different team members in different leadership responsibilities depending on the situation. This built trust and elevated us to be highly effective. Want to hear my story about how Shared Leadership saved my life? Check out my TEDx talk. In today's fast-paced business landscape, Shared Leadership is the compass that guides teams towards success. 🚀 Here are three tactics you can use to cultivate Shared Leadership within your team: 1️⃣ Foster Collaboration: Encourage open communication and idea sharing among team members. When everyone has a voice, innovation thrives, and solutions are more robust. 2️⃣ Empower Decision-Making: Trust your team members to make decisions within their areas of expertise. Empowerment breeds confidence, responsibility, and a sense of ownership. 3️⃣ Lead by Example: As a leader, embrace vulnerability and humility. Show that you value diverse perspectives and actively seek input from all team members. The benefits of Shared Leadership are astounding: 1️⃣ Enhanced Creativity: Diverse viewpoints lead to creative solutions that can set your team apart in a competitive market. 2️⃣ Increased Engagement: Team members feel valued and motivated when their contributions are acknowledged and integrated, leading to higher job satisfaction. 3️⃣ Resilience: Shared Leadership equips your team to adapt to change swiftly, making your organization agile and ready for any challenge. Remember, in the journey towards Shared Leadership, collaboration isn't just a buzzword – it's the cornerstone of sustainable success. Let's inspire and elevate our teams together! #sharedleadership #tedx #psychologicalsafety #collaboration #inclusiveleadership #tedxtalks #tedxspeaker

🔹 𝗔𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖-𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 🔹 Many Agile teams push for autonomy without seeing the real weight of leadership. It’s easy to call for empowerment. It’s harder to understand the pressures above. I’ve sat in the team room, the boardroom, and the war room. I’ve written code, run stand-ups, and signed off audits. The view changes at every level. 💡 From the Team Room: ✅ Focused on flow, blockers, and delivery ✅ Decisions feel fast and close to the user ✅ Assumes leadership just needs to “get out of the way” 💡 From the C-Suite: ✅ Balancing strategy, solvency, regulation, and risk ✅ Every decision carries visible and invisible weight ✅ Must align action with legal, financial, and public accountability 📉 The Disconnect: • Teams think leaders are slowing things down • Leaders think teams are blind to real-world constraints • Both are reacting to pressures the other can’t see This isn’t about defending bad decisions. It’s about context. 📈 What Helps Close the Gap: 1️⃣ Agile coaches shadowing leadership 2️⃣ Teams learning the business constraints 3️⃣ Execs walking the floor to listen, not inspect 4️⃣ Shared training on value, flow, and risk Leaders who’ve been on both sides must step up. Be the connector. Bring flow and governance into one conversation. This is what real agility needs. Not just better teams, but better bridges. 🔗 Full blog post here: https://lnkd.in/ecuBtjXV What’s one shift you’ve made to help teams and execs understand each other better? #AgileLeadership #CIOPerspective #BusinessAgility #EnterpriseAgility #ExecutiveThinking #TeamFlow

Traditional safety nets trap teams. Agile guardrails set them free. Last month, I watched a brilliant tech team try to fix psychological safety by removing all risk. The result? - Innovation plummeted - Decision speed crawled - Top talent started updating resumes ❌ They built protective safety nets ✅ We built performance guardrails instead The Olympic paradox I've seen across 200+ teams: True psychological safety isn't about comfort. It's about clarity. 7 agile guardrails that transformed their culture: 1. The Failure Budget 📊 ↳ Set explicit failure expectations (4-5 learning failures per quarter) ↳ Track and celebrate failure conversion to learning ↳ My Olympic coach required "planned failure days" to push our limits 2. The Decision Authority Matrix 🔍 ↳ Map decisions by impact (minor/major) and reversibility (easy/hard) ↳ Assign clear decision rights by level ↳ Eliminate approval chains for minor, reversible decisions 3. The Hypothesis Protocol 🧪 ↳ Convert opinions to testable hypotheses ↳ "I believe X approach will achieve Y result within Z timeframe" ↳ Share learning criteria before starting 4. The 15% Rule ⏱️ ↳ Protect 15% of time for experimentation (6 hours/week) ↳ No approval needed for time-boxed experiments ↳ Monthly "experiment showcase" with zero judgment 5. The Safety Question Rotation 🔄 ↳ One safety question at the start of every meeting ↳ "What's the riskiest assumption we're not challenging?" ↳ "What are we afraid to say out loud about this project?" 6. The Gradual Release Framework 📈 ↳ Map skill development in three stages: watch, collaborate, lead ↳ Progress measure: "What decisions can they make without me?" ↳ Growth happens at the edge of ability, not in comfort 7. The Bounded Autonomy System 🛠️ ↳ Define clear boundaries, not detailed procedures ↳ "These 3 outcomes matter; how you get there is your call" ↳ If it fails, fix the guardrails, not the people Their transformation results: ✅ Decision speed increased 3x in six weeks ✅ Junior talent took ownership of critical projects ✅ Innovation quality improved 27% by their internal metrics The performance paradox: Freedom without structure creates anxiety. Structure without freedom creates compliance. Guardrails create both safety AND performance. What's one guardrail your team needs most? Share below ⬇ ♻️ Share to help leaders build psychological safety that drives performance 🔔 Follow Eva Gysling, OLY for more leadership insights 🔥 Want to implement these agile guardrails in your organization? Our Executive Culture Coaching builds these exact systems. DM me "GUARDRAILS" to learn more.

Cross-disciplinary science teams are being asked to solve increasingly complex problems—but many of our leadership habits are still built for a simpler world. I’ve been re-reading Dr. Gemma Jiang’s 2023 paper on collaborative leadership in team science, which frames these teams as complex adaptive systems and then asks a practical question: how do we actually lead when outcomes are emergent, not predictable? The article highlights three recurring pitfalls: 1. Perpetual sensemaking with no real decisions or actions 2. Decisions made by a small inner circle without inclusive sensemaking, undermining both quality and buy‑in. 3. Rigid adherence to initial plans even as context shifts, treating the project plan as “the bible.” To move beyond these traps, Gemma brings together three conceptual frameworks that, in effect, act as lightweight operating systems for collaborative leadership: >> Theory U – Encourages teams to go “down the left side of the U” into deep, inclusive sensemaking before committing to action, linking the depth of inquiry to the quality of outcomes. >> Divergence–Convergence Double Diamond – Makes visible the oscillation between divergence and convergence in both sensemaking and action, including the inevitable “groan zone” where integrating diverse perspectives feels hard but is essential for innovation. >> Strategic Doing – Replaces long, hierarchical planning cycles with fast iterations and “pathfinder projects,” integrating thinkers and doers in short loops of sensemaking, deciding, and acting. What I find especially useful is how these frameworks shift leadership from a person to a process: distributed leadership becomes the disciplined practice of structuring conversations so that coherence, decision making, and actions continually inform one another. For those working in large, multi-institutional projects—or building innovation platforms and ecosystems—this paper offers a practical way to design the rules of engagement so that adaptive behavior can emerge without generating chaos or reverting to the rigidities of command‑and‑control practices.

A missed deadline is never just about the deadline. It’s about the tension it creates within a team, the trust it shakes with stakeholders, and the self-doubt it can breed in the person struggling to keep up. In one of my roles as a Scrum Master, I faced this challenge head-on. A team member was consistently missing deadlines, and I had to decide: Do I let it slide? Micromanage them? Confront them bluntly? None of these felt right. What I learned was this: moments like these test us as leaders. They’re not about finding quick fixes—they’re about balancing empathy with accountability. They’re about understanding the why before jumping to the how. I’ve learned to approach situations like this with curiosity, not judgment. A one-on-one conversation is my first step—not to assign blame, but to uncover challenges: What’s been holding you back? Is there something I can do to make things clearer or more manageable? How can we ensure this doesn’t become a pattern? These conversations aren’t just about solving a problem; they’re about building trust. They create space for honesty and collaboration, reminding the team member that they’re supported, not singled out. Of course, empathy isn’t enough on its own. I’ve also had to set clear expectations and follow through. Whether it’s reassessing workloads, pairing them with a mentor, or helping them break tasks into smaller milestones, the goal is always the same: to empower, not punish. Leadership isn’t about perfection; it’s about being present in the messy, human moments. When we approach challenges like missed deadlines with strategy and care, we don’t just fix problems—we build stronger, more resilient teams. So here’s my question for you: How do you handle underperformance in your team? What strategies have worked for you? Let’s share and grow together. #Leadership #AgileMindset #ScrumMaster

Many implementation leaders think leadership is either "tell people what to do" or "let the team figure it out." I used to default to collaboration… until I watched a promising initiative fall apart because we "let the team figure it out." Here's a framework that has helped me determine when to be prescriptive vs. collaborative: First, you need to determine whether the decision is reversible or not. Jeff Bezos famously calls it “one way door” vs “two-way door”. Two-way door decisions? You can course-correct later. Let your team experiment, fail, and find their path. The buy-in is stronger when ideas come from them. One-way door decisions? There's no going back. In that case, be deliberate. Your team can still “figure it out”. But be involved, verify, and sometimes prescribe when you have more context. For example, imagine launching a community and letting the team set all the initial rules and experiment. If something goes wrong, and the wrong behavior’s takes root among community members, well, you can’t quite reshape it. You’d have to start over. That’s a one-way door - an example of something that must be executed correctly the first time. So you need to be deeply involved to set the tone. Especially if the team and you are doing this for the first time. On the other hand, if you have a 3-year project, and the first two months aren't going as well as they should, that’s a different kind of problem. Although it still requires a fix, you have the opportunity to experiment, try out different approaches, and be more collaborative in your approach. You can guide and take stock of how things are evolving, and still be prepared to save the day if needed. Most leaders tend to default to one style everywhere, but that’s dangerous because there are downsides to both. Collaborative leaders let critical moments slip away. Prescriptive leaders crush innovation and ownership. The best leaders switch between both seamlessly. Curious what’s your approach to this as a leader? 

Psychological Safety, Trust, and Failing Fast: What Mary Parker Follett Got Right — and What Disciplined Agile Brings to Life Long before Agile frameworks or lean startup cycles, Mary Parker Follett was advocating for what we now call servant leadership. She believed leadership should arise from "the law of the situation," not from hierarchy — and that the best decisions come from collaboration, not command. Recently, I analyzed data from a simulated survey (N=1,000) to explore what really drives psychological safety — a key foundation of agile performance. Using logistic regression and ANOVA, we found: Leadership trust and team autonomy were the strongest predictors of psychological safety Coaching presence and inclusive cultures also had significant impact Teams with collaborative coaching styles scored 28% higher in safety perception than those with directive coaches These insights are embedded in Disciplined Agile — especially in the DAC (Disciplined Agile Coach) and DAVSC (Value Stream Consultant) roles. Both emphasize trust, dignity, context over control, and failing fast as a path to growth, not blame. Follett’s early insights shaped this mindset — and today’s Agile leaders carry that torch by creating environments where people lead from every level, and learning never stops. #DisciplinedAgile #ServantLeadership #PsychologicalSafety Miguel Angel Garcia Trujillo

Before you roll out Scrum, read this. These 9 lessons could make or break your organization’s agile transformation. At last night’s PMI Chicagoland Annual Business Meeting, David Schwab (William Everett) and Annie Reyes (CASL) shared how Scrum helped shift their organization from siloed planning to collaborative, high-impact delivery. Their nonprofit journey mirrors many of the same challenges and wins I’ve seen in the for-profit world. These lessons are universal—and essential for anyone navigating agile adoption. Here are 9 insights that stood out: ✅ Scrum isn’t just for tech. ↳ It brings speed, alignment, and coordination—even in resource-constrained, people-first environments. ✅ Scrum thrives in ambiguity. ↳ From program launches to cross-functional initiatives, Scrum aligns diverse teams—even when the roadmap is unclear or evolving. ✅ Culture first, then process. ↳ Scrum cannot fix dysfunction, poor leadership, or burnout. It needs trust, psychological safety, and purpose-driven routines. It will shine a light on dysfunction—organizations should be prepared to confront and learn from it. ✅ Start small, scale smart. ↳ Early leader buy-in and time to understand the new ways of working increases the odds of successful adoption across the organization. ✅ Don’t drop the whole playbook on Day 1. ↳ Jumping in with full Scrum terminology and structure can overwhelm teams unfamiliar with agile. Introduce it in plain language and build fluency over time. ✅ Invest in a quality Scrum Master. ↳ One of CASL’s success factors was having an experienced Scrum Master from the start. A trained facilitator is critical to guide, educate, and sustain the team’s momentum. I've seen organizations skip this step—and it significantly derailed adoption. ✅ “Blurry roles lead to blurry results” ↳ When everyone knows their lane, teams move faster, take ownership, and build momentum. Role clarity is critical to a successful rollout—people must not only understand their roles but also be coached to them. ✅ Agility is about people and mindset—not just tools. ↳ Change management and leadership are essential. Expect to spend time coaching your teams, guiding behaviors, and managing resistance. ✅ Retrospectives are the secret sauce. ↳ They create a safe space for feedback and empower voices across titles. These sessions increase engagement, build trust, and generate insights that fuel continuous improvement. The biggest lesson? Agility is about people. It’s not about the framework—it’s about leadership. Reshare to help other leaders navigate their agile transformation. What lessons have you learned when implementing agility in your organization? Drop them in the comments below. 👇 ♻️ Reshare to help other leaders navigate their agile transformation. ➕ Follow Morgan Davis, PMP, PROSCI, MBA Davis for practical insights on leading organizational change and building agile, high-impact teams.