What Makes Effective Leadership in Agile Software Development Teams?

TL;DR

This study explores how effective leadership in agile software teams is distributed among members, emphasizing shared responsibility, team identity, and cultural balancing, based on interviews with professionals across various companies.

Contribution

It reveals that agile leadership is a shared team property, not a role, and highlights key factors influencing leadership effectiveness in agile contexts.

Findings

Leadership is dynamically shared among team members.

Effective leadership fosters a sense of belonging.

Balancing organizational cultures is crucial for agile leadership.

Abstract

Effective leadership is one of the key drivers of business and project success, and one of the most active areas of management research. But how does leadership work in agile software development, which emphasizes self-management and self-organization and marginalizes traditional leadership roles? To find out, this study examines agile leadership from the perspective of thirteen professionals who identify as agile leaders, in different roles, at ten different software development companies of varying sizes. Data from semi-structured interviews reveals that leadership: (1) is dynamically shared among team members; (2) engenders a sense of belonging to the team; and (3) involves balancing competing organizational cultures (e.g. balancing the new agile culture with the old milestone-driven culture). In other words, agile leadership is a property of a team, not a role, and effectiveness depends on agile team members' identifying with the team, accepting responsibility, and being sensitive to cultural conflict.