PMP, PMI-ACP Exam Prep

What is true leader?

Scrum Guide 2020 had mentioned the definition of “True leader” when talking about the roles and responsibilities of Scrum Masters, “Scrum Masters are True leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization”. So, what are True Leaders? Does the Fake Leader exist, therefore, the concept of True Leader comes?

 

DISASTROUS MISUNDERSTANDING

Scrum Guide 2017 wrote, “The Scrum Master is a SERVANT LEADER for the Scrum Team”. This definition caused a disastrous misunderstanding during the Agile application in organizations.

With teams, they think that SM is a servant, who does easy things like meeting room booking, Planning Poker cards, or Sticky note preparation. When a team needs drinking water, printing machine repairing, or network fixing they will ask SM.

With organizations, they consider SM like a low position, least valuation, low payment, easy to replace by anyone else and at any time.

As a result, SM is not valued in the organization, as well as not being confident in their performances. Team members do not consider SM as a part of a team in the organization. Besides that, other staff who are appointed to SM do not care about their titles and think that SM’s work is lowly. Or they are afraid that the organization will not be recognized for their performances. And of course, they will worry about their future career paths.

 

WHAT IS A LEADER?

First of all, a Leader is someone who has a vision and can inspire people, make an effect on others to achieve the general goals of the organization.

To reach the goal, the leader must have leading styles (as PMBOK Guide 6 wrote)
  • Laissez-faire (e.g., allowing the team to make their own decisions and establish their own goals, also referred to as taking a hands-off style);
  • Transactional (e.g., focus on goals, feedback, and accomplishment to determine rewards; management by exception);
  • Servant leader (e.g., demonstrates a commitment to serve and put other people first; focuses on other people’s growth, learning, development, autonomy, and well-being; concentrates on relationships, community, and collaboration; leadership is secondary and emerges after service);
  • Transformational (e.g., empowering followers through idealized attributes and behaviors, inspirational motivation, encouragement for innovation and creativity, and individual consideration);
  • Charismatic (e.g., able to inspire; is high-energy, enthusiastic, self-confident; holds strong convictions); and
  • Interactional (e.g., a combination of transactional, transformational, and charismatic).

Choosing leading styles depending on other factors such as characters of leaders & team members, organization specifics, environment, specifics of work (knowledge work or manual work…)

 

HOW WELL HAS LEADERSHIP STYLE ADAPTED TO AGILE?

In Scrum Guide wrote,

  • The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness.
  • Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization.

Frankly, in order to help the team increase their efficiency, the leader can be the most suitable leadership to reach the goal. However, in an Agile environment, if the leader wants teams to be self-organized to focus on building a customer's product, they only do one thing: how to inspire and motivate their teams instead of forcing them to follow the leader's power and mastery.

Therefore, in an Agile environment, we do not use the command and control styles as PMs in traditional projects usually do. Scrum Guide 2017, the author wrote that it's requested SM leads the team with SERVANT LEADER methodology: It means that they consider the team as the objects to serve (Not to serve them): inspiring, listening to their demands, and meeting those demands for staff (in order that creating the best environment for working, provide resources and knowledge of Agile/ Scrum.. for the teams and increasing their performance). Ensuring that the obstacles do not affect teams if any it must be dealt with as soon as possible. Coaching to develop individual and teams performances. Making necessary changes for project teams to increase the efficiency of teams and organizations.

 

WHAT IS A TRUE LEADER?

A true leader is a leader without an auxiliary noun such as Servant leader or Laissez leader – It’s leadership – Leader.

True leaders in the Agile and Scrum environment do not base on the power or the authority that forces others to follow. Instead of that, the leader focuses on providing and transforming vision to create passion, train, encourage, support, and coach to change any individual or team in a positive way.

To make that reality, SM must have many important skills as follows:

Training: Training Agile/ Scrum for the teams and other related parties after they are established or transformed to understand and have the right knowledge of Agile and Scrum (Agile mindset/ Methods/ Practices)

Mentoring: Mentoring, modeling, imparting knowledge and experience to help the team fulfill their work. The leader can direct the team with TD, pair programming, direct PO the way to write User stories, mentor the team during daily meetings, etc.

Facilitating: As a coordinator, SM must ensure that all Scrum events such as Sprint planning, review, retrospective, etc or other meetings must be done in high performance and on time. Facilitating is the influence on the processes, the order of execution, Agenda, communication ways, discussion methods (do not affect the content and purpose) to optimize efficiency and result of events, meetings of group or team.

Coaching: Coaching is the skill of coordinating, leading people to deal with their problems through question-making. This is the main skill of SM. When a team or individual has any problem, they are persons who know clearly about those things. Therefore, they must have their own decision for their troubles. SM is the supporter-only to help teams optimize and develop the potentials of team or individual.

And the most important point is leading by example. To persuade people following Agile and Scrum including Agile mindset, Agile’s culture, Agile’s action, Agile’s method,…SM must be a good example for the team. If you can not do that, you are not an Agile coach and you cannot help the Agile team.

Actually, the goal of a True Leader in an Agile environment is how to enhance the team’s performance, system and organization in order to optimize for the individual, team, organization’s system and bring valuation for customers.

 

Writer – Hoang Sy Quy, PMI-ACP, ICP-ACC, ATF, CAT, ENT, CSM, A-CSM, Scrum@Scale, PMP, CMMI | Agile Coach, Agile/PMP Trainer

 
 

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