Emergent leadership in agile software development teams: leader identification through network analysis and aggregation approaches
Abstract
Purpose
Agile project teams are self-managing and self-organizing teams, and these two characteristics are pivotal attributes of emergent leadership. Emergent leadership is thus common in agile teams – however, how these (informal) emergent leaders can be identified in teams remains far from understood. The purpose of this research is to uncover techniques that enable top management to identify emergent agile leaders.
Methodology/design
We approached six agile teams from four organizations. We employ social network analysis (SNA) and aggregation approaches to identify emergent agile leaders.
Design/methodology/approach
We approached six agile teams from four organizations. We employ SNA and aggregation approaches to identify emergent agile leaders.
Findings
Seven emergent leaders are identified using the SNA and aggregation approaches. The same leaders are also identified using the KeyPlayer algorithms. One emergent leader is identified from each of the five teams, for a total of five emergent leaders from the five teams. However, two emergent leaders are identified for the remaining sixth team.
Originality/value
Emergent leadership is a relatively new phenomenon where leaders emerge from within teams without having a formal leadership assigned role. A challenge remains as to how such leaders can be identified without any formal leadership status. We contribute by showing how network analysis and aggregation approaches are suitable for the identification of emergent leadership talent within teams. In addition, we help advance leadership research by describing the network behaviors of emergent leaders and offering a way forward to identify more than one emergent leader in a team. We also show some limitations of the approaches used and offer some useful insights.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Erratum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article, Tabassum, M., Raziq, M.M. and Sarwar, N. (2024), “Emergent leadership in agile software development teams: leader identification through network analysis and aggregation approaches”, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-07-2023-0470 incorrectly listed the affiliations of Muhammad Mustafa Raziq in the wrong order. This has now been corrected to “University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates and National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan”. This mistake was introduced during the typesetting process. The publisher sincerely apologises for this error and for any inconvenience caused.
Citation
Tabassum, M., Raziq, M.M. and Sarwar, N. (2024), "Emergent leadership in agile software development teams: leader identification through network analysis and aggregation approaches", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-07-2023-0470
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited