Leaders benefit greatly by having, and living by, strong values and principles based on morality and integrity (how they see is right from wrong). A leader or manager may have their own set of principles and values which they may explicitly share with the team and live by on a constant basis. However a leader or manager will also facilitate a team creating their own shared values and principles to which the team feel more obliged and personally responsible to for, since they not only agreed to them, but came up with them (Covey & Greenleaf, 1977).

Examples of strong moral and integral principles and values can be based upon the following:

• Fair – The principles work for everyone or are compromised fairly, not unfairly excluding, punishing or penalising anyone
• Equal – Everyone has an equally valuable input regardless of any other factor such as experience or qualification
• Honest – Sharing truth and being transparent, no-one should feel they have to hide the truth or deceive nor should the leader or manager
• Respect – Treat everyone as a human-being and respect everyone’s ability, input, experience or judgements. Build mutual respect is built through strong principles

For software, managers and testers also lead through strong principles in agile, testing and quality. The leader or manager helps their teams to be strong, principled voices on doing things right, not cutting corners on quality, and being strong advocates for the importance of good testing. We trust people to do good, responsible work, but also we trust people will follow the necessary processes to assure quality with things like test reviews.

Citations and Further Reading

• Covey, S., & Greenleaf, R. (1977). Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. 25 An. Ed., Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, pp. 4, 152.