Magnolia is an IT company with a start-up spirit and is strongly influenced by agile methodologies, such as SCRUM. The growth of the company calls for more formalised principles and regulations, one of them being leadership principles. To establish leadership principles, however, it is necessary to define what tasks a leader at Magnolia performs, and what role a leader assumes in the context of the organisation. Furthermore, it should be analysed how leadership at Magnolia is enacted and if there is a difference between enacted leadership and what employees expect leaders to be or do.

Six structured interviews were held with employees of Magnolia, three of them with with formal leaders and three with followers. Three different departments were considered. The interviews were then analysed with a qualitative approach using the software Maxqda. The main fields of data analysis provide insights on ideal leadership, enacted leadership, the role of a leader at Magnolia among others. The interview results were compared to leadership literature.

The results show, that a leader at Magnolia performs and is expected to perform a range of different tasks and roles in the organisation. Selected tasks of a leader at Magnolia are planning, organising, problem solving, unblocking, empowering and explaining the strategy. As one of the main results of the research, the tasks and roles are combined into a visual representation of a leader in the organisational context, showing the relation between a leader and various entities within- and outside the organisation. Furthermore, 7 leadership principles were derived, that should guide leaders in their work. Recommendations for action were derived in the fields of performance management, a formalised coaching program and information sharing/knowledge management.