(Note: This post originally appeared at leadingresults.)

Several weeks ago, I made a pact with my Rally colleague Ken Clyne to finally begin blogging in 2011.

At the time, I expected that I’d write about agile product development – what it is to “be agile”, the relative merits of different frameworks, various tips and tricks, and basically share my experiences leading agile transformations.

After all, it’s what I do – it’s what I know.

But then I came across the great TED Talk: “The Golden Circle”, by Simon Sinek

(You can also see this video in Jean Tabaka’s recent post “Tell Me Why“).

“People don’t buy What you do, they buy Why you do it”…  Its amazing what happens when you start asking the right questions.

Agile isn’t the ‘Why’ – at least not for me.  Agile coaching is ‘What’ I do.  Why do I do it?  What do I believe?

First, I believe in LEADERSHIP.

Leadership tends to get a bad rap in some corners of the agile community.  After all, agile is about self-managed, empowered teams and the wisdom of the crowd.  Potential leaders are too often equated with traditional, autocratic management – slow, bureaucratic and in-humane – so they’re effectively told to ‘just stay out of the team’s way’ – and that’s unfortunate.

Truly enlightened leadership is the key to high-performing teams.  Real leadership unleashes the potential of people; transforms them into a team; inspires their passions and focuses their energies.

And I believe in RESULTS.

When we invest our time, energy and passion we expect to achieve something.  To realize meaningful results.  Results matter.  Results can mean more than making money (though it almost always includes that) – delighting customers, being first to market, and creating a great work environment may all be objectives for you, your team and your organization.  Are you achieving results?

No matter the beauty of your process or the philosophical purity of your approach; if it doesn’t yield results it’s a well executed failure.

Too often, results seem to get lost in process maturity and methodology dogma – and that’s certainly not unique to the agile community.

So…  Why Leading Results?

  • Because I believe that enlightened leadership is the key to unleashing the potential of high performing teams that achieve results beyond the imagining of their individual members…
  • I help unleash this potential by coaching people on how to lead effectively, from any position within the organization…
  • I just happen to coach lean/agile principles and practices…
  • Would you like to buy some?

Isaac Montgomery is the harried father of twin sons, the adoring husband of Angie, a frustrated hack on the golf course, and an Agile Coach at Rally Software.  He blogs at Leading Results, and you can follow him on twitter at @iwmontgomery

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