Agile Coaches - STOP Vilifying Leaders and Leadership

Yes, there are awful, incompetent, egotistical, schizophrenic, selfish/self-centered, and thoughtless leaders.

Yes, many of them shouldn’t be in leadership roles or they should simply be fired.

And yes, they’ve created a tremendous amount of trauma that many of us carry—personal, emotional, social, and organizational trauma.

And no, all leaders aren’t the same. I’d argue that there are more who are struggling in the same context that we are and that, instead of judging them, we partner with them. We join with them and help them to achieve their goals (which should be directly aligned with) our goals.

But I don’t want to talk about them. Instead, I wan to talk about us.

I want to explore how we (as Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, and Change Agents) are meeting them. How are we showing up.

Prime Directive

An oft quoted coaching mantra is—”Meet them where they are.”

I’ll add to that—meeting them as they are, in who they are, and in what they are. And not just meet them, but—

• Empathize with them

• Respect them

• Listen to them

• Embrace them

• Understand them

• And walk with them—in their shoes

This is a much deeper and more genuine relationship than simply meeting them where they are. It moves beyond your “saying it” to your “living & breathing it” within your leader client interactions.

As a coach, you need to be able to reach this level of empathy and understanding of and for your client. From an ACGW perspective, this level resides in Self-Mastery under the auspices of—

• Self-awareness

• Emotional Intelligence: Empathy

• Presence

• Ethics

• Principaled role model

Wrapping Up

Vilifying, complaining about, or stereotyping management and leadership serve no good purpose for a Scrum Master or Agile Coach. It gets in the way of our external effectiveness and internal mindset.

We need to work hard on eliminating these gross judgments and perceptions. The work is not for our leader clients; it’s for us to responsibly and professionally—deeply meet them where they are.

Stay agile, my friends,

Bob.

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