A Scientific Baseline for Agile Leadership - A Workshop Study

Abstract

Leadership faces its biggest transformation in decades. The age of data and information as well as the associated digitalization are the driving forces behind fast and radically changing markets. Sustainability, diversity and self-organization are subjects modern companies and their leadership culture must address. There is plenty of literature on agile leadership and many practitioners and coaches work on building an agile leadership culture. However, we realized that there is a lack of scientific research and understanding regarding what characterizes agile leadership. This paper aims to present a scientific baseline for agile leadership to start closing the gap between practical knowledge and scientific investigation. We conducted three workshops with agile experts to elicit their understanding and experiences with regard to agile leadership and aggregated them into an overview of categories and characteristics. Practitioners can use these insights to identify potential for improvement in their leadership culture, while researchers can build on the results in their future research.