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Servant Leadership

5 minutes 5 Questions

Servant leadership is a leadership approach focused on empowering team members, creating an agile, supportive environment, and prioritizing the needs of the team over personal interests or power. In Agile project management, the Scrum Master or Agile coach often demonstrates servant leadership by facilitating events, removing obstacles, and promoting a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. Servant leaders support team members in achieving their goals and promote an environment of trust, enabling the team to self-organize and adapt to changes effectively. By maintaining a servant-first mindset, leaders can inspire their team to achieve high performance and successful delivery of project goals.

Guide to Servant Leadership in Agile Project Management

Servant Leadership is a core concept in Agile Team Dynamics and plays a pivotal role in Agile Project Management.

Why is Servant Leadership important?
Servant Leadership is essential because it fosters a strong team dynamic, promoting trust, collaboration, and effective communication. The servant leader's focus is to serve the team by empowering them, removing impediments, and facilitating communication.

What is Servant Leadership?
Servant Leadership is a leadership approach that prioritizes the needs and growth of the team over self-interest. A servant-leader fosters an environment where team members feel respected, valued, and involved, thereby encouraging high performance.

How does it work?
A Servant Leader leads by example, always putting the needs of the team first. They facilitate the development of the team by encouraging open dialogue, promoting learning and growth, and helping to remove any obstacles.

Examination Tips: Answering Questions on Servant Leadership
1. Understand the concept: Be clear on what Servant Leadership is and the principles that guide it.
2. Practical application: Use real-life examples to demonstrate your understanding of how Servant Leadership works in a team dynamic.
3. Link to Agile: Establish a connection between Servant Leadership and Agile methodologies - emphasize how Servant Leadership is critical to Agile project management.
4. Focus on the team: Remember that Servant Leadership is all about the team - your responses should reflect this.
5. Use appropriate language: Use the appropriate vocabulary to demonstrate your understanding.

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Agile Project Management - Agile Team Dynamics Example Questions

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Question 1

A team member, known for unconventional methods, has come up with a creative but risky solution for a problem that can dramatically shorten project delivery time. As a Scrum Master, practicing Servant Leadership, how would you respond?

Correct Answer: Encourage the team member to validate the idea's feasibility with a small, controlled experiment.

The correct answer aligns with the principles of Empiricism and Servant-Leadership in Scrum by encouraging transparency, inspection, and adaptation through experimentation. It enables the team member to explore innovative solutions while managing risks in a controlled environment. The incorrect answers, while plausible, either bypass the team's collaborative decision-making process, delay action through unnecessary bureaucracy, or rely on external validation rather than the team's own capabilities and experimentation.

Question 2

A team member has stepped up during a challenging project and provided valuable leadership. How should you, as a Scrum Master, respond to this display of leadership?

Correct Answer: Praise the team member's initiative and encourage others to follow their example.

Recognizing and praising the team member's initiative encourages a positive leadership culture and motivates others to follow suit. Ignoring, expressing concern, or burdening the team member with extra responsibilities would likely discourage such behavior. Communication should remain among the team as much as possible.

Question 3

You have been brought in as a Scrum Master to a team that has a history of falling behind schedule. Which approach would help the team improve their performance?

Correct Answer: Empower the team to identify areas for improvement and provide support to implement solutions.

As a servant leader, your goal should be to empower the team by identifying areas for improvement, providing support and facilitating solutions. Enforcing strict deadlines, micro-managing tasks, or reverting the project management approach are not aligned with servant leadership and will likely not help the team improve.

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