Agile Leadership Team: Leading with Purpose and Resilience in a Fast-Paced Economy
Hana Ngo
Executive & Team Coach, Founder of Grow Future LeaderThe Agile Leadership Team: Combating Chaos and Encouraging Growth
In today's rapidly changing environment, fostering synergy within teams is vital. As an executive coach and team coach for over seven years, I have concluded that the key to overcoming the inevitably chaotic business environments lies in building agile systems.
Understanding Organizational Behavior and Impact of Leadership
The heart and mind of an organization's agile system lie within its team's dynamics. A thorough understanding of beliefs and behavior cycles aids in achieving this objective. In the belief cycle, our belief systems trigger our thoughts, which further influence our feelings, and eventually, our actions, thereby determining the outcomes. As an organization behavior and leadership coach, I explore how to influence these belief systems in organizations.
Leaders, through their conduct, significantly influence these belief systems. Leadership is manifested through actions and decisions; how leaders choose to act greatly determines the organization's belief system. Albert Weiss's sentiment, "The three most important factors in leading people is by example, by example, and by example," illustrates this point perfectly.
The Impact of Time Management on Agile Leadership
Effective time management is a consistent challenge across C-suite roles. The most common complaint being - "I don't have time."
- Seas suit individuals struggle to juggle the myriad of tasks and responsibilities.
- Despite working long hours, leaders often feel their efforts aren't resulting in substantial progress.
According to previous surveys on diverse transformations, effective time management proved to be critical for transitioning leaders. By the end of the transition, leaders were dedicating thrice the time to strategy, reducing operational involvement considerably, and allocating a reasonable amount of time to relationship management.
Influencing the Leadership Team
The art of influencing a leadership team stems from three primary factors - creating a purpose, co-building and co-living trust, and developing a dynamic prioritized backlog. These can impact how the team functions, and subsequently, the organization’s performance and success.
Tips For Enhancing Agile Leadership Teams
- Creating The Purpose: High performing teams often have a clear common purpose. As a coach, the first thing I investigate is whether the team has a purpose. Recognize your team's purpose and allow that to guide your actions.
- Co-building and Co-living Trust: Effective leadership is built on trust. Brené Brown suggests that trust is built via consistent tiny actions instead of grand gestures. Leadership teams must inspire trust within their teams and uphold it with consistent actions.
- Developing A Dynamic Prioritized Backlog: It's essential to keep an updated backlog to retain the purpose. Prioritize the most important items for achieving the purpose and consider how they can be achieved.
As I conclude this session, I urge all leaders and teams to focus on their purpose, foster trust, and maintain a dynamic prioritized backlog. Remember, you have the power to influence your organization's behavior and belief systems, and it starts with managing your time efficiently and leading by example.
Questions Your Leadership Team Should Consider
- Who are you, and what do you do?
- Who do you do it for, and what do these people want or need?
- How will your actions influence change?
Contemplate on these questions and engage in discussions with your teams. The goal is to co-create and find our purpose, and we can accomplish this through reflection and conversation.
Wrapping Up
Thank you for joining me in exploring the dynamics of agile leadership teams. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. By developing these habits and fostering growth within our teams, we can navigate our organizations through even the most chaotically changing environments.
Video Transcription
Right. So uh my name is Hannah, uh I'm executive coach and team coach. Um And uh my 1st 10 years of my career, I was actually uh international program managers for more than 300 companies.So with business backgrounds and in the last seven years, I work as executive coach and uh as a team coach uh for diverse estrogen formations. And um one of the most common challenge from the CEO um and the sea suit as well as the transformations is the chaos and the continuous changing environments, which is um I think that maybe some of you already know um that 70% of the actual transformation fail and from my experience as, as a coach, as well as a leadership coach, um what I saw in organization and the that actually succeed in the A R transitions is the bill, the agile systems.
So it's not um a part of it, but they build on a go systems um in order to have an a sustainable other uh organizations enterprise. And in the middle of it, um the lice theme is the heart and the mind of this as systems, as an organization behavior. Specialist. Uh I also study organization behavior and observe how that work out within different organizations. And if you take a look at the uh science of um behavior and belief, then uh we have this belief circus, we start with the belief systems and um go on to be the thought, the feelings end up in the accents and um in the results, uh it gave us the results from the consequence of our um accents.
And so gus uh belief circles on and on and it is um the unconscious circles that going very fast in our mind. So as the organization behavior and the coach, uh I also study how to influence these belief systems in the organizations. And uh what I found out is um in the organization and belief systems. One of the factors that influence a lot on that is the leaders themselves and the behavior from the leaders. And in particular, the leadership themes, for example, if I'm going in the organizations and um I see a certain problems that happens or appear in the behavior of the leadership theme, then basically, uh a lot of that might reflect back into the, the behaviors. Um So for example, if you go into the organization and you see that the themes are um not focused, they don't have a clear focus on the directions as well as on the priorities of the organization, then probably you can notice that also in the leadership team as well. So which is the reasons? Um Albert Weiss was once said the three most important factor or thing in leading people is by example, by example, and by example, so how can a leadership team or leaders influence the organization uh belief system as well as how that the functions that lie in the behavior of the leaders themselves and the leadership theme?
So the question from my side to you is um if you like uh take a look at our leadership theme, it's a little city in agile and just stay with us in the chats and to see how um it is in the organizations. So the question for you, yes, it's a little city in Asia. Thank you, Rachel for saying this. I read um from the comments and indeed is one of the problems uh in the a transition. Thank you, Martina for sharing yet. Um These problems happen quite often. And uh one of the thing that I can give you as a tips as well as the way to check on it is take a look at the time management from the leadership team. Um I have talked with hundreds of the Seas suits uh roles as well as the uh themes and one of the biggest trails of the seas suit peoples or persons are time management. So um the commons uh complaint is I don't have time, right? So they ask too much for me. I don't have to or there's so many things need to be arranged and uh I don't have time. Um or one of another comment is uh I work day and night, but it doesn't seem to move, right? So how do we conquer this? How do we move the time management to the site of agile in the uh previous surveys from uh uh different um transitions?
Uh We studied the leader time spans and by the end of the transition, you see that the leaders spent three more times on strategy, they went from 10% of their terms previously to 40 and 50% or more or less on the operations. So it was, they went from 60% time spent on operation to 25% and uh incredibly um a reasonable amount of time spent on tailor management at the end of the transition, which is 35%. So if you would take a look at the uh time management from the leadership team in the beginning of the other transition, then the one of the most common um problem is that a lot of time spent on the operational work and much less on the strategies. So my um invitation to you is if you could take a look at the management of the leadership theme, th uh spent, what are the areas that they are most spent on? Please stay with us on the chat. So the question to you is if you take a look at the um as a leadership team or leadership team, management team in all companies, uh where is the TMO spent on? It's not clear for you when the time is spent. Yet, transparency is also one of just Jen's um from the literacy team, the management team towards uh the organization, like how their time spans and what other subjects they are talking about. And yes, Martina also talking with each other.
So for a leadership themes and for you also some tips how to influence it. Um Of course, there's a difference between the, you would influence the leadership theme from the inside the leadership team or from outside, from the environment of the leadership teams. There would be a different way how to influence it. The three tips that I learned during my process as the articles, as well as the executive coach, leadership coach. Uh These are three important tips for you and the uh organizations. The first one is called, created the purpose.
The second is co building and car leaving the church. And the third one is create one dynamic, prioritized backlog. Well as, and as I say, there would be different way how to influence it from within or from outside the uh leadership team. Um So I would like to share with you with these pictures. Have you ever had this feeling when you walk into an organizations? Yes. Yes. I also recognize this when um seven years ago, um I went to an it organizations. And indeed, you have the feeling like you are lost, right? Different department, different organization, a different part of the chain organized to different directions. And uh there's no alignments and no purpose clear. They operate in co Yes. So, uh which is the reason that um how would uh so see from um from the famous coffee uh or said, when you're surrounded by people who say a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible, which is also what I realized uh during uh the uh my career, the last 17 years, um I've been in situations where I uh was a programmer managers for four year uh business development program.
So within that program, we have six months to help 100 international companies with 50 different things. And this 50 different things coming from uh different industries. And uh there are people that I didn't know before. So what we did is we gather together and we uh defied together a common purpose. And at the time, the purpose of the whole 50 themes is how to uh is to organize in such way that we can help our clients uh to find the leads and develop the project internationally. We have six months to do it. And uh with all different people, different backgrounds, we came together and each team has its own way of operating. They also have the buddy system by the way. And uh at the end of six months, we wrote the project successfully. And one of the things that I learned very first time is to set the common purpose. And that is uh also one of the way to develop high performance teams. So when I came into different organizations, one of the first thing I would check as a coach is, does the team have a purpose? And that is uh also uh familiar uh like uh in the literacy, the, which is uh lead me to the question for you.
If you already know what is your leadership theme purpose or if you are not in the leadership role, then uh the question for you in the theme is what's your theme purpose? If you already know, then uh please stay with us uh in the chat with. Um Yes. And if you don't know yet, then just answer in the chat with. Um No, we don't know yet. OK. So let's see. What's our participants currently thinking of? Thank you Rachel for sharing. Um And yet, uh the situation when the team don't yet know the purpose is quite common. Uh It can be a, a lot of reasons. It's because of theorization or people who don't know each other yet. Or it's because um the shifting between the purpose changing in direction of the companies, a lot of reason why a team uh doesn't know yet what their, the purpose is and I'm here to help. So, uh I would like I'm going to share with you a few things um to together with our team to figure it out. So let's go to the next step. Um Ma said, if you want to be a leader, the first person you have to lead is yourself. So before we go to the part of you and the, the finding the theme purpose, let's take a look at jobs. So seven years ago when I uh message John Deson from the programmer managers to a coach.
Um Then at the time, I asked myself, what did I like most to do? What I'm passionate about? And that was the term um it ring a bell to me because the red line to my career was to help people and help team to grow and to make changes. And at the time, I asked myself a few questions and this five questions that um those five questions and then I learned from Adam uh from the TED talk um which can be used for the team as well. And I basically also use these five questions uh to defy the, the purpose uh with my teams. The question for you is who you are. What do you do for whom do you do it for and what those people wants and needs and how they change as results. So for now, we might not have enough time to answer all this so we can just write it down and take a moment. To reflect. And also, so what of the purpose is and the same, you can use these five questions to ask in the team for you in order together call create and find the the purpose.
The second part is just Rena Brown said, just is not built in big sweeping moment, it's built in tiny moments every day. And she also said with us, a frame works how to build us, which is the bravings uh state for Broady account, thought integrity, non judt and generosities. So with this, you can signal when just an a there in the theme and how to do it as last and not less. The third part is the backlog. Um So coming back to you yourself, if you would have a backlog to achieve the purpose, what are three items on the backlogs? Give some thought about that. You don't need to um say with that in the chart and something that you might uh consider to um explore by yourself. And how would you rank three most important items on the backlogs? So with these 32 questions you can also solve to figure it out um and also to use it in the leadership team so that uh it for the sessions. Um Thank you for also attention if you have questions.
Um Please feel free to ask and thank you Rachel for sharing with us.