In my previous posts I described how the Personal Shadow of a manager can inhibit an Agile transformation process in organizations (though I didn’t use the word “Shadow”). Here I would like to discuss the idea of the Shadow in organizational context and explore how it influences the outcomes of an Agile transformation process. In one of my next posts, I will also focus on the particular tools and techniques you can use to work with the Shadow and assimilate it.
You might have thought at some point why some managers can get everything right: employees understand them immediately, they do all their tasks, come up with proposals if something goes wrong and so on. Yet another manager, who may have the same experience and skills, is having difficulties. Some of my readers would say that such a manager lacks charisma or leadership qualities. Others would insist on a lack of experience. And they will all be right in their own way.
What I want to emphasize before digging deeper is the fact that in order to use tools and techniques from psychology, one must first understand oneself and sort oneself out. As Jordan B. Peterson says, set you house in perfect order before criticizing the world. This will probably require a lot of work and will take time, but it is a necessary precondition to successfully using these tools.
A few months ago I facilitated a training session (tailored by myself) for team leads centered around “Useful Habits of a Leader.”. I believe that this theme could be of interest not only for team leads in IT companies but also for anyone with a leader-like approach in all facets of life.