Management: the 6 qualities of an agile leader

In today's fast-paced environment, organizations need to react quickly to keep pace. In an agile company, the manager is the linchpin in uniting staff and helping them achieve their objectives. So how do you become an agile leader? What are the strengths of these humanist managers? Let's find out together!

What is agile management?

The benefits of an agile company

Flexibility, responsiveness and innovation are the hallmarks of an agile company. Particularly in vogue since the 1990s, this structure adapts to regular market changes to remain competitive. With the famous "try and learn" concept at its heart, the agile enterprise is based on continuous improvement.

The benefits are many: shorter time-to-market, disruptive products and services, organizational flexibility and high team commitment!

The role of the agile leader

A true conductor, the agile leader must enable everyone to flourish in his or her own field. He ensures that his team works in harmony and synchronization. To help him in his daily work, the agile leader uses tools like Slack or Discord (internal messaging), Trello, Asana or Click-Up (project management), and methods like Scrum or Kanban.

GOOD TO KNOW
For agile management to be a success, the corporate culture must be adapted accordingly.

The qualities needed to become an agile leader

Uniting teams

Close to his teams and at the heart of the action, the agile leader is a man of the field. He emphasizes corporate culture, open-mindedness and collaboration to unite teams. With his power of conviction, he communicates the "why" of the structure to give meaning to objectives.

Supporting employees

The agile enterprise evolves in a changing environment. The leader must therefore communicate (a lot) about changes in direction. The risk in the opposite case? A loss of meaning for employees. The agile leader shows empathy and consideration, and supports his employees in achieving their professional and personal goals.

Empowering team members

In an agile company, autonomy and freedom are synonymous with responsibility: everyone is in charge of their own work, everyone is their own boss. Once the means are available, the employee must organize himself to achieve the result. Beware, this can be destabilizing!

To find out more, read our article on transformational leadership.

Delegate & trust!

One of the essential qualities of an agile manager? Being able to delegate tasks, while maintaining an overview of projects. His role is to facilitate implementation: he fetches information, structures resources and acts as an intermediary with management. Once the framework has been put in place, the agile leader must delegate execution... and trust his team (even if they break the codes)!

GOOD TO KNOW
The agile manager knows how to delegate and give his trust... but he must also be present to support his collaborators. Let's not forget: he's a hands-on person who knows how to listen.

Making decisions

No pointless procrastination! The agile leader is capable of making decisions to set the pace for his team. He chooses the priorities for achieving the company's objectives. He assumes responsibility for good and bad decisions with his colleagues, and also knows how to gather feedback (opinions) in order to improve. Gone are the days of misunderstandings: the agile manager demonstrates transparency by keeping everyone informed of any changes or new developments.

Forming a corporate culture

In an agile company, the various teams are not compartmentalized (e.g., the accounting department on one side, product R&D on the other). On the contrary, they work together to ensure better communication and responsiveness. Each individual is free to develop his or her own area of genius.

The agile leader takes into account the values and culture of team members. His goal? To capitalize on them and create a true corporate culture.

As you can see, agile leadership works well with autonomous profiles. The manager can support his colleagues while making decisions to stay on course (or change course, when necessary). When well mastered, agile management enables the team to flourish and be particularly productive!