As a part of Active Agile, our vision is to elevate the level of leadership. We want leadership to be recognized as the craft it really is, not as something by happenstance which you can’t replicate, just when you need it the most.
Leadership is easy to take for granted, because when it’s present, magic happens. When it leaves the building, faith in the future vanishes, frustration grows and bad things can happen.
Bad leadership just sucks. Your career is too short for it.
Leadership in an Agile environment is different. The fast pace means proactive acts of leadership is expected from everyone, not just a selected few. It is the art of understanding how to shape working systems, how people, architecture and culture interact to form a hard–to- copy competitive edge.
Everyone is capable of acts of leadership, it’s a skill that can be trained, and when you have the skill, you exercise it more often.
The launch of our certification program marks our contribution to a shift – where Leadership is seen as the craft that it really is, and an essential skill in all Agile organizations.
Our contribution to build awesome leadership has three pillars:
- Help people navigate the complex universe of leadership in Agile environments
- Share the setup of the skills required to lead dynamically (btw, we are happy if people copy this, for us, it simply means we have raised the bar for leadership across the globe)
- A certification program. First out is “Certified Active Agile Leader”. Certified Active Agile Leaders is a validation of the fundamental skills of how to lead through others in Agile environments, as well as awareness in areas which you should deepen your expertise in, as you improve your leadership craft throughout your career.
The Active Agile Leader Certification
To get the Active Agile Leader certification, three conditions need to be fulfilled:
- You take the course with our Certified Trainers (we care deeply about having truly awesome trainers and their commitment to our mindset).
- You validate your knowledge of the skills (you take a test)
- You make things happen – you have practiced and improved something in your company (this is validated by the trainer).
Level up throughout your career with us
As leaders, we are lifelong learners. As you advance in your career, so will your perspective and responsibility. System capabilities like Architecture, Culture, Competence and Strategy become important. You are forced to craft and shape these areas. But were you ever trained for these scenarios?
As a validation of your mastery on system leadership in the enterprise, you can level up as Active Agile Sensei. A sensei is more than an expert, a sensei is a also a guide, “the one with more experience who can guide you along the path”. To attain the sensei level, at least two System Leadership skills must be gained. System Leadership includes the capabilities visualized in our Leadership Library, as follows:
- Agile Strategy
- Agile Architecture
- Forecasting
- Decision making mastery
- Culture
- Enterprise Change leadership
- Energizing your environment
Leadership is a craft where mastery is attained by a lifelong quest to get better at it.
Or as we say, “First lead yourself, then lead a team, then sustainably improve a company and finally, improve the world.”
The Active Agile Leader Certification program with our two levels marks our commitment to help you improve your leadership craft throughout your career, and to elevate the level of leadership across the globe.