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    The 9 Leadership Roles

    Foundational archetypes for team self-organization

    • Coach

      Focuses on team behavior and development

      Knowledge

      • Understand Team Roles
      • Motivation Theory (e.g. Herzberg)
      • Psychological Safety
      • Feedback Culture & Conflicts

      Skills

      • Identify team dynamics
      • Build trust
      • Provide feedback
      • Uncover missing behavior
      • Surface conflicts

      Values & Attitude

      • Role model for feedback
      • Develop leadership in others
      • Coach towards positive conflict culture

    • Knowledge Enabler

      Ensures expertise and learning flow

      Knowledge

      • Understand team knowledge needs

      Skills

      • Visualizing & structuring information
      • Support knowledge acquisition
      • Facilitate exchange meetings
      • Foster peer learning

      Values & Attitude

      • Role model for knowledge gaps
      • Establish positive failure culture
      • Promote iterative learning

    • Helicopter

      Maintains the big picture and structural links

      Knowledge

      • See bigger picture
      • Difference between Goals (OKR) & Work items
      • Ceremonies & Workflows

      Skills

      • Understand project goals
      • Jointly formulate team goals
      • Structure work & backlog
      • Prepare PACE ceremonies
      • Support stakeholder management

    • Method Champion

      Guardian of the agile process

      Knowledge

      • Agile Manifesto
      • Frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, XP, SAFe, OKR)
      • Ceremonies, Roles, Artefacts

      Skills

      • Facilitate ceremonies
      • Explain 'Why' for agile
      • Teach methods
      • Formulate artefacts

      Values & Attitude

      • Reflect agile mindset
      • Adapt methods to team needs
      • Stimulate discussion on adaptation

    • Networker

      Connects the team inside and outside

      Knowledge

      • Project organization setup
      • Important stakeholders
      • Important peers

      Skills

      • Connect team with experts/stakeholders
      • Support sprint review organization
      • Knowledge sharing & peer groups
      • Stakeholder management support

      Values & Attitude

      • Coach other facilitators

    • Protector

      Shields the team from interference

      Knowledge

      • Agile Manifesto
      • Frameworks
      • Ceremonies, Roles, Artefacts

      Skills

      • Foster focus
      • Identify inappropriate requests
      • Shelter from PO/mgmt interference
      • Staffing involvement

      Values & Attitude

      • Argumentation skills
      • Politics ;)

    • Moderator

      Facilitates understanding and decisions

      Knowledge

      • Agile ceremonies
      • Moderation methods
      • Decision making methods

      Skills

      • Organize workshops (standard & new)
      • Communication
      • Build bridges between perspectives
      • Facilitate decision making
      • Conflict moderation

    • Disciplinizer on Equal Terms

      Holds the team accountable on eye-level

      Knowledge

      • Values and principles (software/agile)

      Skills

      • Facilitate team rules/values
      • Communicate on eye level
      • Support following agile values
      • Meeting facilitation

      Values & Attitude

      • Understand importance of values
      • Resolve tense topics on eye level
      • Role model in interpersonal self-efficacy

    • Change Agent

      Drives organizational change and mindset

      Knowledge

      • State-of-the-art product dev (Lean-agile, XOps, OKR)
      • Failure culture
      • Change management basics

      Skills

      • Identify anti-patterns
      • Accept failure & learn
      • Prioritize needed changes

      Values & Attitude

      • Role model
      • Convince teams & mgmt of better ways
      • Influence higher level decisions