Principles and Values Underlying Agile Leadership

by Jim Highsmith

Some people seem to have their best ideas in the shower; mine seem to come on bike rides. In thinking further about leadership traits (in an earlier Advisor), I realized I needed to add a third. In the previous Advisor (see "Agile Leaders Turn From Focus on Tasks and Choose Adaptation," 6 November 2008), I suggested that the differentiating traits between traditional and agile leaders were teams over tasks and adapting over conforming. The third differentiator is "delivering value over meeting constraints," or value over constraints.