Host Leadership

If you’ve hung around agile circles for long, you’ve probably heard about
the concept of servant leadership, that managers should think of themselves as
supporting the team, removing blocks, protecting them from the vagaries of
corporate life. That’s never sounded quite right to me, and a recent
conversation with Kent Beck nailed why – it’s gaslighting. The manager claims
to be a servant, but everyone knows who really has the power.

My colleague Giles Edwards-Alexander told me about an alternative way of
thinking about leadership, one that he came across working with mental-health
professionals. This casts the leader as a host: preparing a suitable space,
inviting the team in, providing ideas and problems, and then stepping back to
let them work. The host looks after the team, rather as the ideal servant
leader does, but still has the power to intervene should things go awry.