Effective Leaders Don’t Shame with Diana Larsen

Agile Coaches' Corner

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by Diana Larsen, who has made amazing contributions to the Agile community. She is also the author of Agile Retrospectives: How to Make Good Teams Great and recently published a book called Lead Without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams.

In this episode, Diana is talking about leadership, not only in the Agile community but also in the general community. Diana talks about how leaders come in different shapes and sizes and how they can avoid blame and shame in the workplace to reach better efficiency.

Key Takeaways

● Diana talks about Lead Without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams.

○ This book is directed not only at the Agile community but at the general public.

○ The mission of this book is to think about how we can improve our systems rather than pointing fingers at Teams or Leaders.

○ This book is meant to be useful (not theoretical) and to help anyone in their day-to-day struggles.

● Leaders come in many shapes.

○ Whatever kind of leadership role someone is filling, there are certain things that need to be understood in order to avoid blame and judgment and ultimately to aim for everybody to be more effective.

● Shame and blame in the workplace:

○ If people see blame happening anywhere, they will spend time trying to prevent being the one that takes the blame, deflecting that energy somewhere else.

○ If people internalize the blame in the workplace then shame follows.

○ We tend to look for people making mistakes instead of trying to find where they are doing well.

● What are some alternatives to the blaming and shaming approach? Purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence.

○ Leaders can help people learn and develop better skills in blocking blame.

○ Diana talks about the difference in motivation between Teams and individuals

○ Understand why we are doing what we are doing. Does everybody understand the same purpose?

○ Preserve Team autonomy.

○ Co-intelligence: Together as a Team, collectively, we have the skillsets that the Team needs. Lots of leadership and tactical skills are needed in a Team in order for it to be successful.

● How do Retrospectives help to build resiliency in a Team?

○ There are many ways for supporting retrospectives; Diana describes some of them.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby

Lead Without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams, by Diana Larsen and Tricia Broderick

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