By Maarten Sterrenburg

Some opportunities don’t just make you proud.
They make you reflective.

Being selected to speak at the SAFe & AI Summit this March, at the iconic De Beurs van Berlage, is one of those moments for me. Not because of the stage, or the audience, or even the theme but because of the story we get to tell.

Together with the Department Head of Online Interaction, Jacco Mulder from the Dutch Tax Administration, I’ll be sharing a leadership journey from one of the most challenging environments you can imagine to achieve Business Agility. An environment shaped by compliance, legacy systems, politics, and deeply rooted hierarchies. A place where you don’t get to remove constraints easily, a place where you have to learn how to lead with them.

And that’s exactly why this topic matters.

Scaling doesn’t create flow but leadership does

Over the years, I’ve seen many organisations invest heavily in frameworks, tooling, and structures, hoping flow will magically follow. Especially in large enterprises and government contexts, the belief is often that better rules or more process will unlock agility.

Our experience taught us something different.

Frameworks don’t create flow.
Leadership does.

That insight didn’t come from theory. It came from practice. From moments where rules were non-negotiable, compliance was a given and yet decisions still had to be made, teams still needed direction & autonomy and outcomes still mattered.

What we learned and what we’ll share at the summit, is how leadership shifts from rule-based execution to intent-driven decision-making. How clarity of intent (“de bedoeling”) becomes a stabilizing force when formal authority alone no longer works. And how consciously choosing how to lead can make the difference between stagnation and momentum.

I won’t give away the full story here (that belongs on stage) but I will say this: the biggest breakthroughs didn’t come from adding new roles or processes. They came from leaders changing their behaviour and building an environment of psychological safety, trust and collaboration.

Why this journey deserves to be shared

What drives me personally to tell this story is not that it’s perfect. It isn’t.

It’s candid. It includes what worked, what didn’t and why certain choices had unintended consequences. We experimented with dual roles that combined hierarchy and functional responsibility. Sometimes that accelerated decision-making. Sometimes it exposed new tensions. And every time, it forced us to confront leadership paradoxes instead of trying to eliminate them.

That’s a conversation I believe many organisations need right now.

Because complexity isn’t going away.
Because constraints and compliance aren’t disappearing.
And because pretending they will only delays real progress.

This journey also reinforced something I deeply believe in: People Managers matter. Not as an extra governance layer, but as sensors of the undercurrent. Helping organisations anticipate earlier, align faster, and make better decisions when time and certainty are limited.

These are not abstract lessons. They are lived experiences from inside a system where leadership choices have real societal impact.

Why I’m excited to tell this story together

Telling this story together with Jacco is essential. Leadership transformation doesn’t happen from the outside in. It requires ownership from within the line, from leaders who are willing to reflect on their own role, their own assumptions and their own influence on the system.

Our perspectives are different and that’s exactly why they complement each other. It mirrors the very principle we’ll be talking about: alignment through shared intent, not uniformity.

More than a talk; a conversation

This year’s summit is extra special for another reason. Connected Movement is one of the main sponsors of the SAFe & AI Summit this March. We’re incredibly proud of that role and even more excited about what it represents: being part of a community that’s willing to look beyond frameworks and talk honestly about leadership, behaviour and impact.

If you’re coming to the summit, please visit our stand. Tell us about your journey. Tell us about your challenges. Whether you’re navigating scale, compliance, AI, or leadership paradoxes? We’d love to listen, exchange stories and learn together.

Because in the end, transformation doesn’t start with answers.
It starts with better conversations to get to better outcomes.

And I can’t wait to have those on stage and beyond.

Read more

Read more about our appearance at the Summit here: SAFe & AI Summit Amsterdam 2026

Or go to Scaled Agile and see the latest about the full program: https://safesummit.com/2026amsterdam/