Servant Leadership
Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enrich the lives of individuals, build better organizations and ultimately create a more just and caring world. A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. Traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid.” By comparison, the servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first, and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.
It is recommended that Scrum Master embraces a Servant Leadership Style rather than an Autocratic style.
Let’s take two simple examples of how a servant leader might address a few common project situations versus a traditional command and control manager. Situation
| Autocratic Approach | Servant-Leader Approach | |
| Status taking/reporting | May repeatedly ask what is your status on an item, when will you be done, and why are you not finished yet? | Knows the status of items implicitly by virtue of facilitating daily stand-ups, working in team room, and challenging the team to update their Information Radiators |
| Issue identification and resolution | May ask why haven’t you fixed this? When will you fix the issue? Why do you need so much time? etc | May ask how can we as a team help, how can I personally help, what have you done so far, do you have ideas, and what do you recommend as alternative |
