How important is leadership for Agile & Lean in the office?
Agile & Lean organizations rely more on leadership than strict command and control structures. Leadership emphasizes modeling the way, inspiring shared values, and enabling others to act in concert – as opposed to giving orders. Leadership involves skills such as inspiration, persuasion, and creativity, so those without direct authority can still positively influence others. Agile & Lean techniques help to establish the value priorities for each value stream of an organization. Once value priorities are established, leadership is critical to maximize value creation and minimize waste, by maintaining shared value priorities across employee (functional), regional, product/service, and customer domains. Leadership requires permission of the group that is to be led. It is not enough to set yourself or anyone else up as a heroic figure leading the charge. In Agile & Lean organizations, employees agree to be led in the pursuit of value creation and waste reduction. Without this buy-in, chang
