Leading for Growth
Multiplying leaders rather than building followers, delegating authority, and nurturing autonomy.
The true test of leadership is how many new leaders one produces. Leading for Growth focuses on identifying emerging talent, building self-confidence in engineers and managers, creating safe spaces for decentralized decision-making, and deliberately stepping back into a supportive role.
- Creates platforms for team members to lead initiatives, speak at all-hands, and celebrate achievements.
- Applies structured delegation tools (e.g., Delegation Poker, 7 Levels of Delegation).
- Strengthens ownership and agency among Engineering Managers and Tech Leads.
- Celebrates the accomplishments of others and stays in the background when squads receive accolades.
- Creating dependency by positioning oneself as the indispensable bottleneck for every decision.
- Taking credit for team innovations and successes in status reports to executives.
- Micromanaging every initiative out of anxiety that emerging leaders might stumble.
Evolution in this Subcompetency
Hoards influence and insists that all major process decisions pass through their desk.
Intentionally builds leadership capabilities among Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and Tech Leads.
Constructs a self-sustaining leadership ecosystem across a global tech enterprise.
Diagnostic & 1:1 Interview Questions
Use these questions during maturity evaluations, team audits, or developmental 1:1 conversations.
How many new agile leaders and champions have emerged within the organization over the past year?
To what degree are technical and process decisions executed autonomously without coach involvement?
Do engineering managers view the coach as a collaborative accelerator of their own authority?