Mike Lyons breaks down what separates managers from transformational leaders: vision, inspirational communication, intellectual stimulation, support, and personal recognition. He shares how empowering a team member built trust, and argues that courage, compassion, vulnerability, and curiosity create the psychological safety teams need.
There's a difference between someone who shows up as a manager versus someone who shows up as a leader and as agile project managers. Our role is to embody the latter, to be transformational leaders who inspire and elevate our teams, even if we still retain the title and responsibilities of manager. Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy? Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me. Jonathan Smart, in his excellent book Sooner, Safer, Happier, describes some of the differences between commander, or what we might call a traditional manager and a leader. A commander is established by position, whereas a leader is established by a way of behaviors and mindset. A commander is for a few, but a leader is for all. A commander orders, while a leader listens, inspires, and informs. Obeying a commander is mandatory, but following a leader is voluntary. Commanders need extrinsic motivation, while leaders have an intrinsic motivation. A commander's power is positional, but a leader's power is given by followers. The traits on the right are what we would call transformational leadership. Alright, another area we can look at for information on leadership comes from somewhere you might not expect The State of DevOps report is an annual study that examines how DevOps practices impact organizational performance. You might be wondering, how is this relevant to us? Mike because the report consistently shows that leadership plays a crucial role in team performance and project success, regardless of the specific methodologies used. In fact, The State of DevOps report identifies five characteristics of transformational leadership. The first one is vision. These leaders they understand clearly where the team and the organization are going and where they want the teams to be in the future. And then we have inspirational communication. These leaders say positive things about the team, things that make employees proud to be part of their organization. And they encourage people to see changing conditions as situations full of opportunities. They're also intellectually stimulating. That is, they challenge team members to think about old problems in new ways and to rethink some of their basic assumptions about their work, to reevaluate things that they may have never questioned before. These leaders practice supportive leadership. They consider others personal feelings before acting and behave in a manner that's thoughtful of others personal needs. And finally, these leaders practice personal recognition. They personally commend team members when they do a great job and they acknowledge improvement in quality of team members work as delivery managers. Embodying these characteristics is crucial, but it's not just about being a role model or a coach. It's about creating an environment where teams can thrive. This requires courage and compassion, vulnerability and curiosity. Courage to make difficult decisions and Stand up for your team. Compassion to understand and support team members through challenges. Vulnerability to admit you don't have all the answers. I haven't the faintest idea. Curiosity to continuously learn and encourage innovation. And by demonstrating these qualities, by being a role model, we create a psychologically safe environment where the team members feel empowered to take risks, share ideas, and hold themselves and others accountable. Your behavior sets the tone for the entire team. If you want to see open communication, be the first to communicate openly. Recently, a team member was updating a knowledge repo for a large organization, and I was the team leading, and this would affect over, like, 13,000 users. So it was kind of a big deal. But she kept asking me to approve her work, like, multiple times a day. I told her, look, you're on my team because I trust you. I think you're smarter than me about this, so go for it. And if something gets wonky, don't worry. We'll fix it together. Trust yourself. As I trust you and press forward, I could literally see a sense of relief come over her. And we went on to do awesome work. As a leader, I try to be open to other people's thoughts and experiences, knowing that I can learn from them. So there you go. Transformational leadership. It's not about being perfect. It's about continuously learning and creating an environment where your team can do their best work.
