Turn the Ship Around! By L. David Marquet Re-read Saturday Week 5: Call to Action and Whatever They Tell Me To Do!

In week five of the re-read of L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around! we tackle chapters five and six.  These two chapters, titled Call to Action and Whatever They Tell Me To Do! continue to tell the stories that form the basis for Marquet’s leadership model. 

 

Turn the Ship Around! By L. David Marquet Re-read Saturday Week 2: Foreword, Introduction and List of Characters

We continue the re-read of L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around! This week we take care of all of the pages numbered with italics. Front matter is generally a tack on; however, in this case, there are some important clues to how Marquet’s management style evolved.

 

Turn the Ship Around! By L. David Marquet Re-read Saturday Week 1: Introduction and Game Plan

We will begin the re-read of L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around! next week and I am stoked. Buy your copy and listen to the interview I did with Mr. Marquet (SPaMCAST 202) to get involved in the re-read.  I am going to lead the re-read from my copy from 2012 (7th printing).  The book has 29 chapters, not including the forward, a cast of characters, index, afterword, and a glossary. The book is an easy read because Marquet is such an excellent communicator.  My intent is to knock out the preface material next week and then begin delivering 2 chapters per week. If my estimating ability holds true, we will complete our re-read in 18 weeks.  I expect to miss two weeks due to travel.

I was introduced originally to David Marquet’s remarkable book by Bill Fox (Bill’s website is  Container 13.  Captain Marquet’s ideas of leadership have had and continue to have a major impact on how I lead and interact with everyone in my life.  Before we begin I want to say thanks to Bill for the introduction and thank you to David. If you have not read this book please buy a copy and dive in. I would also suggest checking out David’s Intent Based Leadership YouTube channel, Leadership Nudge, to reinforce the ideas in the book and to see the evolution of the ideas from Turn the Ship Around! 

 

Not All Management Theories Facilitate Agile Behavior

Collaboration

In Leadership Overview: Leader or Hermit, we discussed how people become leaders.  In today’s Daily Process Thoughts we are discussing how people lead.  Not all leadership models make sense for an Agile team.  For example, the Great Man model does not fit the idea of a self-organizing, self-managing, collaborative team. Great Man theories assume that the capacity for leadership is inherent; team members follow because the leader is destined to lead. This leads to command and control leadership styles. Command and control leadership styles will hurt Agile teams because it does not support team involvement in self-organization and self-management. Three management theories help explain the types of leaders that work for Agile teams: contingency, participative and relationship theories.

Contingency theories of leadership suggest that no single leadership style is the best for all situations.  The environment (team, business problem, management structure and others) influence which particular style of leadership and leader is best suited for the situation. For example, I recently watched a Scrum Master lead a team through their initial planning process where there was significant hostility between the team members due to lack of trust.  A few days later, as full-scale development began, a senior developer took the mantle of leadership to help the team make architectural decisions.  Later in the sprint, a skilled tester provided leadership to help the team tie up testing loose ends. Each person on the team was able to lead using different traits and styles that fit the specific situation.  Contingency theories reflect the impact of dynamic variables on leadership, which impacts the style that fits best.

Many leaders within Agile teams have participative leadership styles.  Leaders that use the participative style will take the input of others into account. In many Agile teams, participative leadership is a reflection of flat team hierarchies. Through encouraging participation, contributions and collaboration from team members, the leader helps to ensure that everyone feels relevant and included.  The troubling part of many participative leadership theories is that the leader “retains” the right to allow input, which also suggests that they can unilaterally decide to not allow input.  While this retained right can be a necessity to deal with emergencies, the systematic use of escape clause will destroy a self-managing team.

The relationship between a leader and the team is at the core of relationship theories of leadership.  These types of leaders motivate and inspire members of their teams to see the value in the work the team is being asked and have committed to deliver. Relationship-style leaders are both performance driven and people-centric. This is the type of leadership espoused by David Marquet in his book Turn the Ship Around. Leaders that have been using relationship leadership theories most closely reflect the role defined for a Scrum Master.

The three styles of leadership are the most conducive to Agile Contingency theories reflect life in Agile teams where different situations require both different leaders and different leadership styles.  Participative theories reflect a collaborative approach that fits with the ideal of self-organization.  Finally, relationship theories reflect the drive for performance and a people-centric approach that is a direct reflection of the Scrum Master’s role.  Agile, unlike Kanban, is not neutral with respect to the choice of leadership theory.  Any of the three we’ve discussed today (perhaps even better, a style that combines the best of each) will work with an Agile approach, not against it.