Taken from the Lessons in Agile Management written by David Anderson, this Tribal Leadership excerpt comes from the collection of over 150 articles compiled from the Agile Management blog and several other sources. It represents 12 years of invaluable insights by David J Anderson in managing software development. This excerpt explores different themes of recognizing tribal behavior, managing tribes, and the importance of tribal leadership.
The history of the Agile movement, and the entry of Lean and Kanban into the same workplaces, is a story of tribes. That’s not surprising, because tribalism is about people- about relationships, affiliation, motivation, loyalty, and leadership. Introducing a new methodology in the workplace inevitably leads to the challenge of managing tribes.