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Becoming an effective leader in an agile environment requires relinquishing traditional ideas of control and giving team members the space to find their own solutions, according to Ben Ross, former head of product and UX at MYOB.
In his time in the role, MYOB went through the “big product and cultural change” of committing to agile and Ross says the transition took him on a significant leadership journey.
“[I went] from being a pretty directive leader to one where I had to relinquish quite a bit of control and give autonomy and decision-making power to the team members,” he told bluenotes on video.
" I had to relinquish quite a bit of control and give autonomy and decision-making power to the team members."
Now an entrepreneur in residence at MYOB, Ross says in the push to become agile the company needed to “change not just the product but our culture.”
“That’s really a change in the way our mindset is around constant improvement,” he said.
Ross said MYOB leaders set out to explain what they were trying to do to help their customers and then allowed team members the discretion to find their own solutions.
“Initially we focused a lot on the how we would do things [before] really backing off defining the how and really just describing the what.”
He also touched on the difficulty of change and why agile demands full commitmentt. Watch the video above to find out more.
Andrew Cornell is managing editor at bluenotes
The views and opinions expressed in this communication are those of the author and may not necessarily state or reflect those of ANZ.
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How to be an agile leader
2017-07-11
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