BECOME A TRULY AGILE LEADER

BECOME A TRULY
AGILE LEADER

Scrum Alliance Certified Agile Leadership Courses

The idea for Scrum Alliance’s Certified Agile Leadership (CAL) program came about in 2016 when business leaders came to us seeking support for the unique challenges they face in sustainably accelerating innovation and leveraging agility on their teams. In developing an agile leadership program, our primary goal was to give leaders like you the tools and strategies you need to spearhead transformations in complex, unpredictable environment in which rapid development helps you thrive. To create the learning objectives for our program, we brought together professionals from an assortment of fields of study to determine what effective leadership really looks like.

Our Certified Agile Coaches and CAL educators are agile professionals with breath and depth of experience in the agile space, both theoretical and practical. They are peer-vetted professionals and their Scrum Alliance certification validates the high standard of quality we set for our courses. Their experience includes, but isn’t limited to, coaching, leadership, organizational design and enterprise agility. They organize at the team and enterprise level to bring authentic experiences to the classroom.

Based on feedback from our educators, in June 2020, we re-structured our CAL I course into three distinct modules: Certified Agile Leadership Essentials, CAL for Teams and CAL for Organizations to offer customizable course combinations to the agile leadership community. Now students may choose which modules best fit their leadership goals and take the courses live online from anywhere they have Internet.

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Attributes of Agile Leaders

Commitment & Respect

Overloading teams and team members is a common mistake agile leaders make as they learn to educate themselves and the organization about how agile teams operate most effectively. Commit to the health of your team by respecting their bandwidth and commitments. Agility requires your team to focus its energy on delivering a limited number of minimally viable deliverables at a time. As a leader, you may need to push back on the business and other leaders — your teams succeed by prioritizing projects and outcomes. Focus on removing barriers and setting boundaries.

Openness

Influential agile leaders give regular feedback that's positive, neutral, and "negative." They also encourage, request, and enthusiastically receive feedback from their employees and teams. There are many formats through which this can be done, both formal and informal, and it's a great idea to have the formal ones in place to ensure nothing falls through the informal feedback cracks. Remember, as an agile leader, your job includes mentorship and coaching, not just "management." If you implement these systems within your teams and organization — your internal customers — you'll be better at encouraging that feedback from the external audiences as well.

Related: Adapt Your Leadership Style for Rapid Change and Uncertainty

Empowerment

Empowerment indicates the relationship between employees and leadership via autonomy and authority. It is characterized by the even distribution of power. Power is crucial and leaders that give authority to their subordinates respond accurately and efficiently to their environment. They invest their time and effort in their company and possess high levels of morale. For instance, if you are an empowered employee, you will be more flexible than a downtrodden employee.

Tolerance

This is a company's desire to achieve a culture that goes beyond the face of ambiguity. The market is extremely unpredictable. So, you need to prepare to spot changes and respond immediately and efficiently. It is also important to be flexible because different situations require different reactions.

Vision

What is the main goal of your organization? Do you have a purpose? The vision of your company is as important thing ever. It is what unifies all the departments of your company. It is the inspiration behind all the operations in your company and steers you in the right direction.

Related: Critical Behaviors for Agile Leaders

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