Leads by Serving

Robert Greenleaf coined the “servant leader” phrase some thirty years ago, describing said leader as someone who ensures that “other people’s highest priority needs are being served.”^[7] The agile project manager also embodies this ideal, that whatever the team needs to be productive, the team gets. We often use the mantra “Everything for the team, for the customer” as a way for project managers to think about serving. Sometimes serving can feel administrative—the gofer who gets snacks for meetings, writes purpose and agendas, and processes meeting results. And, yes, sometimes these tasks can become mundane and seem trivial. Yet serving in this manner provides untold value to a team (or teams) in that it is free from these tasks and can focus on what knowledge workers do best: create expressions of knowledge in the form of products.

Let’s consider the ceremony around eating. The seemingly small task of gathering, preparing, and serving food has deep meaning to humans from a ritual and ceremonial perspective. Think about your own religion, for example, or your own family customs. How does food play a part in how you celebrate? Why, then, would ordering the “iteration planning pizza” or taking the team out for an afternoon latte be any different? It is through the act of eating as a group that we share a sense of community and tribalism. The next time you think of that pizza order as merely “gofer-ish,” think about the thousands of years of tribal instinct you are evoking, subconsciously, for your team. Eating together is an important team activity.