Leadership
83 bites tagged Leadership — interview questions with model answers, and 60-second explainers.
What a Head of Growth Actually Does
A Head of Growth is a systems architect for revenue, deciding where to place strategic bets, not just a campaign manager. They align product, engineering, and marketing around shared metrics and build the experimentation engine.
Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
Kotter's 8-Step Model treats organizational change as a campaign, not a memo. It's used for major shifts like mergers or new AI strategies. Skipping steps like creating urgency or celebrating small wins is a common failure mode, causing momentum to fizzle out.
Humble Inquiry: Ask Questions You Can't Answer
Humble Inquiry means asking questions you don't know the answer to, building trust by showing genuine curiosity. Use it in 1-on-1s or retrospectives to uncover hidden assumptions. The footgun is asking a leading question disguised as an open one.
Intent-Based Leadership: The Leader-Leader Model
Instead of waiting for orders, teams declare their intent to act. This leader-leader model, born on a nuclear sub, shifts the default from 'ask permission' to 'act unless vetoed,' empowering distributed decision-making.
Intent-Based Leadership: State the Goal, Not the Steps
Instead of giving orders, leaders declare their intent, empowering teams to figure out the 'how.' It's used in agile teams or military units where frontline context is key. The footgun is giving control without clarity, which leads to chaos instead of results.
Management 3.0: Manage the System, Not the People
Management 3.0 treats leadership like tending a garden, not commanding an army. You manage the system—the environment and constraints—to let empowered teams flourish. It's used in agile contexts to boost engagement with hands-on tools and games.
The Four Stances of an Agile Coach
An agile coach isn't just a senior Scrum Master; they operate from four stances: teaching, mentoring, facilitating, and professional coaching. This model helps them choose the right approach to develop a team's capability, not just run ceremonies.
Psychological Safety: The Foundation of High-Performing Teams
Psychological safety is the belief you won't be punished for speaking up or making mistakes. It's the top predictor of team effectiveness, enabling the risk-taking and candor needed for innovation.
Agile Coaching: Teacher, Mentor, Facilitator, Coach
An Agile Coach isn't just a senior Scrum Master, but a guide helping teams find their own path to high performance. They support teams by teaching, mentoring, facilitating, and coaching to improve outcomes.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Model for Diagnosing Failure
This model uses a business fable to explore the root causes of team failure and organizational politics. It applies when a team struggles to grow together, offering a framework to diagnose underlying issues.
Servant Leadership: Serve First, Lead Second
A servant-leader inverts the power pyramid, focusing on their team's growth over their own power. This is common in Agile, where scrum masters remove blockers to help developers perform at their best.
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