Leadership Styles in Agile Teams: An Analysis Based on Experience

Abstract

This study covers the lack of literature analyzing the empirical relationship between leadership styles and self-management in agile frameworks. We have conducted a comprehensive survey in agile teams in order to analyze the relation between the self-management concept and the different types of leadership that occur in such teams. To perform the study we have followed the Goleman’s leadership classification and the Marquet’s and Kniberg’s self-management models. Besides the previous concepts, we also investigate how different leadership styles exert alignment and autonomy within agile teams. The statistical evidence of these results has been validated for the sample at hand using statistical hypothesis tests. The results of the study show that respondents’ perception of self-management in their teams remains similar and significant for all leadership patterns. Moreover, we study the effect of the alignment dimension within the concept of self-management, showing that authoritarian leadership styles, when present in agile teams, compensate low levels of autonomy with high levels of alignment.

Keywords

• Agile software development
• innovation management
• engineering management
• organizational aspects