It's not explicitly called out in the agile Manifesto, but servant leadership is enshrined in the practices and principles. Here's a look at how it's a critical behaviour.
A few years ago I was presented the opportunity to design an agile enterprise. At that point in my career I was working at the senior executive level with a large financial institution; I had 'chief' in my title. As I began my agile knowledge path it became clear that building and practicing agile required an unflinching commitment to creating the best outcomes for the users/customers completely through team empowerment. There was no room for the supposed status and superiority of the big title—it only mattered what I could bring to support the work. My value lay in what skills and tenured knowledge I'd built over my career could provide every day. Not what my label supposed. So I got rid of the title and dug into doing the work of building agile.
I'm not a fan of the term, 'Servant Leadership'; a business buzzword that seems dated. But the intention is as prescient as ever, particularly as it applies to agile.
There are many ways that servant leadership is key to agile success. For example:
Agile leaders remove blockers. Agile ceremonies like daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives all expose "blockers" or impediments to squad success. It is the leader's responsibility to dig in and use their expertise and authority to support the team by removing blockers.
Agile leaders do the work. Senior leaders have often 'been there, done that' as their careers have evolved. It's also true though, that they get further and further away from actually doing the work; for example they spend more time in administrative tasks, or strategic activities. Agile Leaders need to be part of the team to lean in on doing the work when needed (called, "Flow to Work"), so that their senior skills can be directly valuable to successful outcomes.
Agile leaders don't dictate HOW the work gets done. There is no place for the micromanager in agile. Self-organizing teams are the most qualified to understand through collaborating together the best ways to accomplish the work. The servant leader can coach and contribute, but not dictate and control.
Then, are there no leaders in agile?
Certainly leadership is democratized to a greater extent than traditional development models. This is one of the things that's so empowering for the teams. However, there are leadership roles that are typical in an agile enterprise. A pod lead is a role that senior leaders can evolve to. It's work that ensures the organization's strategies are connected effectively to the work of the agile enterprise. It also provides a coordination point across multiple teams/squads, and is primely responsible for removing impediments. The Agile Coach role is another leadership position singularly focused on raising the quality of the agile enterprise—ensuring all team members are supported in their use of agile ways. The role of Chapter Lead is a valuable enterprise capacity: the leader may be the company's top data scientist for example, and be responsible for the success of the data analysts that are working in the squads. These and other leadership roles in the agile enterprise have one thing in common: they require servant leadership.
If you're thinking about how to evolve to an agile enterprise, and recognize the challenges that lay ahead for your current leadership structure, let's talk as I have some ideas.
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