Great Teams Start with Great Leaders

In the Professional Scrum Master class, one of the activities we do is to ask participants to remember a time when they were on a truly great team. We then ask the question, what made that team great?

I hear lots of answers. People talk about having a clear and meaningful goal. They mention a positive attitude. They highlight strong collaboration and mutual respect.

But by far the most common answer I hear has to do with leadership.

Again and again, participants describe leaders who trusted the team, removed obstacles, asked good questions, and created space for people to do their best work. It makes me think that great teams really do start with great leadership.

Which is funny, because so many people still believe there aren’t leaders in Scrum. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Leadership Is Not Optional

Scrum teams are self-managing. That means the Developers decide who works on which Product Backlog items and how the work will be delivered. The Product Owner decides what is most valuable. The Scrum Master helps the team improve.

But that doesn't mean that we don't need managers and leaders. We just need them to lead a bit differently than they do for simple work. Scrum is used in complex environments, so we need leaders who are empowering the Scrum team's creativity, not controlling their every move.

That's why the leaders who get praised most often in those “great team” stories are the ones who empower rather than direct. They don’t assign individual tasks. They don’t dictate technical approaches. Instead, they:

• Let the Scrum team decide who should take which work

• Trust the team to figure out how to deliver it

• Ask questions that help the team collaborate and think more clearly

• Focus on removing impediments and ensuring the team has the resources it needs

• Empower the Product Owner to decide what the team will work on

• Ensure that Developers are empowered to decide how much they will delivery each Sprint

Great leaders recognize that we have hired people to deliver complex work, so a leader's job is to help make sure that they are empowered to do that.

What Empowering Leaders Actually Do

Great leaders create clarity around purpose and outcomes so the team knows why the work matters. They protect the team’s ability to focus by helping to make sure that the business understands how to work with the Scrum team. They ensure that Products are defined and understood and they set teams up for success by organizing teams around products rather than technology silos.

They also know how to ask better questions. Instead of jumping in with solutions, they help the team surface its own thinking. And they understand the delicate balance between self-management and guidance. Too much control kills ownership. Too little support leaves teams adrift. Finding that balance is the art of Agile leadership.