Agile leadership in software development teams : a perspective on the differences between leaders and non-leaders

Abstract

Despite a considerable amount of research aimed at understanding agile leadership in software development teams, much of the existing literature focuses exclusively on the perspective of leaders. Previous research has shown that, for leaders, agile leadership is a shared, dynamic, and collaborative process that promotes belonging and cultural integration. However, there is a gap in understanding how developers who do not occupy leadership positions perceive this approach since the agile concept aims at self-management and self-organization of software engineering teams. This raises important questions about how leaders and nonleaders perceive and share agile leadership. Understanding these differences is essential because leadership perceptions directly influence collaboration, communication, motivation, and efficiency of software products and processes. Investigating these perspectives helps identify points of convergence and divergence that affect team alignment, contributing to the improvement of agile processes. Thus, the main objective of this thesis is to evaluate how leaders and non-leaders perceive agile leadership, improving leadership processes and practices in agile contexts. To this end, two complementary studies were conducted using qualitative and quantitative approaches. The first was a case study with two development teams, investigating differences in leadership perception. The results indicate that while leaders perceive leadership as shared and collaborative, non-leaders often see it as individual and hierarchical. In addition, factors such as team tenure, technical experience, team size, and aptitude influence leadership distribution. Then, to triangulate the data and complement the case study, the quantitative approach tested hypotheses and identified correlations between leadership styles and assignment responsibilities, as well as differences between leadership assignment factors and situations in which this assignment occurs. Among the main contributions, this thesis proposes recommendations to improve agile practices, promote collaboration, and align expectations between leaders and non-leaders to increase process efficiency and software product quality.