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Servant Leadership is Not Servitude
Jan 31, 2025
The Misunderstood Role of the Scrum Master
There’s a common misconception about Scrum Masters that needs to be challenged. Too often, the role is seen as a glorified note-taker, a meeting scheduler, or worse—just the team secretary.
Let’s set the record straight:
Scrum Masters are leaders.
Scrum Masters are change agents.
Scrum Masters are not there to serve tea and tidy up Jira boards.
The term "Servant Leadership" is one of the most misinterpreted phrases in Agile. It does not mean submission, passivity, or doing the team’s admin work. Instead, it’s about empowering teams, removing obstacles, and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
So, let’s break down what true Scrum Mastery looks like—and why getting it wrong can make or break an Agile team.
The Role of a Scrum Master: Beyond the Buzzwords
A great Scrum Master balances three core leadership dimensions.
The Catalyst for Team Growth
A Scrum Master isn’t there to give orders, but that doesn’t mean they lack authority. Their role is to challenge the team, coach them, and guide them towards self-sufficiency.
A mediocre Scrum Master might say, “I don’t want to push the team too hard.” A great Scrum Master asks, “How can I help the team identify and remove their own blockers?”
They encourage critical thinking by prompting the team to reflect on key questions.
Are we actually delivering value, or just completing tasks?
What’s preventing us from improving as a team?
Are we truly collaborating, or just co-existing?
A great Scrum Master nurtures a continuous improvement mindset, ensuring that retrospectives lead to action—not just venting sessions.
The Shield, Not the Butler
One of the most critical functions of a Scrum Master is protecting the team—not by being an overbearing gatekeeper, but by ensuring they have the space to work effectively.
This means safeguarding Agile principles from common challenges such as stakeholder interference (Encourage stakeholders to work through the Product Owner to ensure new requests are properly prioritized in the backlog rather than disrupting the sprint.), unnecessary processes, and overcommitment culture.
A great Scrum Master ensures sprint commitments are realistic and team-driven, the backlog is well-maintained, and the team remains focused on delivering value rather than just ticking boxes. Not by doing it themselves but working closely with those who do each part of the process.
If a Scrum Master spends all their time chasing people for updates rather than coaching the team to self-manage, something has gone wrong.
The Invisible Leader
Servant leadership does not mean taking a back seat—it means leading in a way that enables others to take ownership.
A great Scrum Master leads without authority, influencing through expertise, trust, and facilitation. They make themselves redundant by building a team that doesn’t need hand-holding. They create an environment of psychological safety, where people feel comfortable challenging ideas, asking for help, and experimenting.
They do not seek credit, but their impact is undeniable. When they leave a team, the culture they’ve built remains (this is the greatest sign of a great scrum master.)
Scrum Masters Who Get It Wrong
Many Scrum Masters struggle because they fall into one of these traps. While their intentions might be good, these misinterpretations of the role can lead to disengaged teams, slow delivery, and an overall lack of continuous improvement. If you're navigating these challenges as a Scrum Master, my book Agile How To: Navigate the Agile Journey as a Scrum Master dives even deeper into how to build influence and empower teams.
The Passive Observer
A Scrum Master who operates as a passive observer believes their main responsibility is to simply facilitate meetings and ensure the Scrum events take place. They avoid stepping in when the team struggles, assuming that their role is to let the team “self-organize” without interference.
Signs of a Passive Observer:
They rarely ask questions that challenge the team’s approach or thinking.
Retrospectives turn into a routine checklist rather than a catalyst for meaningful change.
They allow dysfunctional team dynamics, such as one or two people dominating discussions, without intervention.
The team is stagnating rather than continuously improving.
Example: A Scrum team consistently misses their sprint goals due to overcommitment, but the Scrum Master remains silent, believing that "the team will figure it out." Instead of facilitating a discussion on sustainable pacing and work-in-progress limits, they allow the problem to persist. Over time, team morale drops as members feel frustrated with unachievable expectations.
A great Scrum Master would step in by helping the team analyse their past sprint velocity, facilitating a discussion during the retro and possibly again in planning about commitment levels, and encouraging a mindset of sustainable delivery rather than constant overwork.
The Team Admin
Some Scrum Masters fall into the trap of becoming little more than administrative assistants for the team. They take meticulous notes, update Jira or ADO tickets on behalf of others, send out calendar invites, and act as the go-between for the team and stakeholders. While coordination is part of the role, it should not become the role.
Signs of a Team Admin Scrum Master:
Their day is filled with administrative work rather than coaching and enabling the team.
They are constantly chasing people for updates rather than fostering accountability.
They take notes for the team in every meeting instead of encouraging team members to take ownership.
They act as a go-between, filtering communication rather than encouraging direct conversations between the team and stakeholders.
Example: A Scrum Master spends most of their time organizing sprint ceremonies and making sure everyone attends, but they fail to challenge the team on whether the meetings are effective. They handle stakeholder updates, summarize decisions, and take action items themselves "becomes the fixer, communicator, doer, of all". Over time, the team becomes disengaged, attending meetings out of habit rather than for meaningful discussions, and looking to the Scrum Master to drive all process-related decisions and even micro manage them.
A great Scrum Master would shift their focus toward empowering the team. Instead of simply organizing meetings, they would facilitate meaningful conversations. Instead of acting as the go-between for updates, they would enable the team to engage directly with stakeholders. Instead of taking on all the admin work, they would coach the team to own their process, fostering a sense of accountability and continuous improvement.
The Process Police
A Scrum Master who behaves like the "process police" is obsessed with enforcing Agile practices to the letter, often forgetting that Agile is about adaptability. They focus on whether everyone follows the framework rigidly rather than ensuring the framework serves the team.
Signs of a Process Police Scrum Master:
They shut down discussions about adjusting the Scrum framework, insisting, "That’s not how Scrum works!"
They prioritize ceremony over value, enforcing timeboxes and meeting structures even when they no longer serve the team.
They spend more time ensuring that people follow the rules than helping them understand why those rules exist.
They discourage experimentation and flexibility.
Example: After failing to achieve their sprint goal for 5 consecutive sprints , the team suggests changing their Daily Scrum format from individual status updates to a product goal discussion based on the work each person is doing and how it will help achieve the goal, as they find the traditional three-question format limiting and not actually covering the gaps being seen each sprint preventing them from achieving the sprint goal. Rather than exploring whether this change could improve collaboration, the Scrum Master shuts down the discussion with, 'We have to do it this way because the Scrum Guide says so.'
A great Scrum Master would recognize that Agile is about outcomes, not rituals. Instead of rigidly enforcing every rule, they would focus on whether the team is collaborating effectively, continuously improving, and delivering value. They would be open to tweaking ceremonies if doing so leads to better results while still upholding Agile principles.
The Takeaway: True Servant Leadership is Empowerment, Not Submission
Being a servant leader doesn’t mean taking orders from the team, nor does it mean just making sure everyone is “happy.”
It means removing barriers so the team can own their process. It means facilitating, not dictating—leading teams to self-improvement. It means being brave enough to challenge bad habits, misaligned priorities, and wasted efforts.
Great Scrum Masters lead from the back, empower from the front, and remove obstacles from the middle. When working one on one guide individuals through empathy (Coach & mentor not manage).
What’s Your Take?
Have you seen Scrum Masters misinterpreting “Servant Leadership”? What’s been your biggest challenge in balancing leadership with facilitation?
How have you navigated the balance between guiding a team and letting them self-organize,
Drop your thoughts in the comments below.
More Resources for Agile Practitioners
My series of Agile How To books dig deeper into this topic and many others. The series includes: