What Are the 3 Types of Agile Leadership?

Agile leadership is much more than dealing with the daily ceremonies of Scrum or using Kanban boards. It is primarily about finding the best way to manage people and teams when priorities, customer needs, technology, and business needs are volatile.

There are three primary types of agile leadership: servant leadership, situational leadership, and transformational leadership. Each type addresses a unique type of leadership challenge.

Servant leadership and situational leadership complement each other, as do transformational leadership and the energy and vision for meaningful change that it engenders.

The different types of leadership may overlap. One type may work for a given team, while another may work in the next. Every agile leader must use a variety of leadership styles.

Key highlights:

• The 3 types of agile leadership are servant leadership, situational leadership, and transformational leadership.
• An agile leader looks into creating a culture of trust and safety by setting a clear goal and supporting teams in being self-organised.
• The core principles of agile leadership include creating psychological safety and encouraging self-management.
• Team development stages include forming, storming, norming, and performing.
• The 3 C’s in agile leadership are collaboration, communication, and commitment.
• The core traits shared across different agile leadership styles are adaptability, systems thinking, emotional intelligence, trust, and customer focus. 

What Is Agile Leadership?

Agile leadership focuses primarily on people and the unpredictable, complex nature of the world. Agile leaders use a variety of methods, tools, and practices that help teams ensure the timely delivery of value, rather than relying on control and a series of rigid plans.

Principles of Agile software development provide the bedrock for agile leadership, but it isn’t limited to software teams. Marketing, product, operations, finance, design, and customer service teams are also able to implement the principles of agile leadership.

An agile leader strives to:

• Set a clear goal.
• Create a culture of trust and safety.
• Support teams in being self-organizing and cross-functional.
• Create a culture that is free from impediments.
• Foster a culture of experimentation and learning.
• Prioritize empirical evidence.
• Develop and empower people.
• Collaboratively work towards customer and business value alignment.

Agile leadership does not mean that leadership does not make decisions or take responsibility. Agile leadership more so describes how the decisions and the location of authority change. 

Rather than concerning themselves with all the workings of each detail, agile leaders set parameters, determine end results, and ensure the people engaged in the work make the decisions (where appropriate).

How Does Agile Leadership Differ from Traditional Leadership?

Traditional leadership tends to be more of a ‘boss’-oriented style. At an executive level, the plan is created, tasks are allocated, performance is monitored, and finally important decisions are confirmed. This style works best when the work to be executed does not require much thought, and the work is predictable.

Agile environments are more complex; teams work on complex problems where newly discovered information may make the original plan obsolete. Several weeks or even months down the line, the original plan may become completely irrelevant.
 

The difference is not that traditional leaders care less about people or that agile leaders have no structure. The central difference lies in the way authority, information, accountability, and change are managed. 

Type 1: Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership is one of the more recognized forms of agile leadership. Servant leadership typically puts the team's development and overall well-being first and foremost.

Confusing the meaning of servant leadership is common. Servant leadership does not equate to being the team's order taker. The leader still draws boundaries, corrects problematic behavior, and protects the team from irrelevant distractions.

The overall principle is leading by serving, rather than leading by controlling.

Core principles 

1. Serving the team

The first step in servant leadership is knowing what your team needs. This can mean providing your team with supportive information, the best tools to use, the most important tasks, supportive stakeholders, etc. Distractions that prevent focus and interpersonal skills training may also be helpful. As a team member, your main purpose is to help your team progress.

This does not mean doing your work for them. Being a servant leader requires helping your team members to learn and grow without your assistance.

For example, imagine your design team is waiting for someone to give them approval to continue their work. Your job as a leader is not to help them with the design, but to go around and get the approvals so the team can finally work.

2. Removing obstacles

Agile teams may lose a lot of time due to unclear directions, slow decision-making, conflicting priorities, technical obstacles, and/or politics between teams.

Leaders at this level remove these obstacles and help teams make these blockers visible, knowing the people who can remove the obstacles, and helping the process until resolution is achieved.

Some blockers are easier to remove. Others may need politics, negotiations, escalations, multiple team meetings, and improvement processes. The main point is that you remove the blockers and do not let your team own the block.
 

3. Coaching over commanding

Using command and control simply gives orders. Using coaching creates vision and active participation.

By learning to coach, a leader can maximize the skills of the team and achieve goals faster.

A servant leader may ask questions such as:
 

• What is obstructing us from accomplishing this goal?
• What do we have to know to come to a conclusion?
• Which choice is most appropriate for the customer outcome?
• What did we gain from the previous iteration?
• How will the group deal with this sort of problem without our help the next time?

Coaching and developing members of the group lessens the risk of the team becoming dependent and increases the long-term capability of the team.

4. Creating psychological safety

Teams have to feel safe enough to tell the truth, admit to their mistakes, challenge assumptions, or provide alternatives to the dominant opinion. Without psychological safety, problems are hidden until they become costly and difficult to deal with.

Servant leaders seek to improve the group by using the results of retrospectives, rather than participating in a blame game, and by expressing their own views. They express openness by constructively responding to feedback.

5. Encouraging self-management

Servant leaders help a group take responsibility for the planning and the execution, along with quality and improvement. They offer guidance initially, but will, in the long-term, decrease their involvement to support the group in managing their work.

Servant Leadership in Scrum

The role of Scrum Master and servant leadership are closely related. A Scrum Masterguides the Scrum Team and facilitates the collaboration of the Team while removing impediments and supporting the Team in their self-management.

The Scrum Master position is unique. The Scrum Master is not the typical team boss. The Scrum Master position is more than ordering meetings or poster management. In accordance with Scrum, the Scrum Master functions as a support role to the Scrum team, the Product Owner, and the organization by enhancing the effectiveness of Scrum.

Some of the leadership characteristics of a Scrum Master include:

• Scrum principles and practices.
• Scrum events facilitation.
• Coaching self-management.
• Product Owner’s product goals and backlogs.
• Defining and removing impediments.
• Creating a teamwork culture.
• Making the Scrum Team and stakeholder collaboration easy.
• Protection from disruptions.
• Improving the Scrum Team.

The 2020 Scrum Guide shifted away from saying that a Scrum Master is a “servant leader” and placed additional emphasis on the Scrum Master having true leadership skills that provide service to the Scrum Team and the organization as a whole. This semantic change removes the assumption that the Scrum Master role is administrative and subordinate.

When Servant Leadership Works Best?

When member empowerment, collaboration, trust, ownership, shared responsibility, and engagement are key priorities of the organization, Servant Leadership is one of the best approaches. It is also effective when the Scrum Team is already equipped enough to make their own day-to-day decisions.

Servant Leadership is the way forward when:

• The Scrum Team is self-empowered and equipped to make routine decisions
• The organization needs a culture of ownership
• The team members need more support than oversight
• Prioritizing collaboration and knowledge sharing
• The Scrum Team is encountering blockers or interference from stakeholders
• The organization is adopting Scrum or any similar framework
• Long-term Scrum Team capability

At times, situations may require the Servant Leadership style to be coupled with other styles when a team is devoid of direction, going through a significant change, or working in an elevated risk environment that necessitates the making of swift and direct decisions.

Type 2: Situational (Adaptive) Leadership

Situational leadership appreciates that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to leading teams. Effective leaders are flexible in their approach based on the skills, confidence, and experience of the team, and the nature of the work that needs to be done.

In an agile environment, the term ’adaptive leadership’ is used to describe the ability to respond to changing situations. The leader is an observer, interpreter, and responder, adjusting the approach based on the feedback.

Core Principles

1. Adjusting style to team maturity

A new team requires a high degree of structure together with clarity and coaching. An established team may deteriorate if too much direction is maintained.

Complications will most likely arise if a leader allows too little direction to an established team, whereas a new team will rarely follow if the leader allows too much direction, coupled with a lack of empowerment and support.

Situational leadership relies on assuming four distinct, yet interchangeable, roles, based on the smarts of the team and the level of their commitment toward the goal:

• Directing: Organization and communication of goals and expectations.
• Coaching: Direction is provided along with an explanation and encouragement.
• Supporting: Timely intervention and adjustment for alignment.
• Delegating: Complete empowerment for personal decision-making.

They are not static labels. The same group may need different levels of facilitation at different points during a project.

2. Responding to context

Team maturity is just one factor. When considering context, other factors an agile leader may need to think about include:

• The level of urgency.
• The probability of failure.
• The level of uncertainty.
• The impact this may have on clients/compliance.
• The presence of competing parties.
• The level of information available.
• The state of the team (e.g., the level of current activity).
• The impact of making a decision (or not making a decision).

For instance, a leader may normally adopt a hands-off approach and allow the operational decisions and staff coordination to be owned by the team. However, while dealing with a case of serious misconduct, a leader may decide to adopt a more formal hands-on approach to ensure staff know their roles, communication channels, and frameworks to respond to the violation.

This is an example of agile leadership. It means adjusting the leadership style to fit the circumstances.

Connecting to Team Development Stages (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing)

The formation of a team is normally described in terms of the stages of development: Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing. These stages of development are useful when considering how the needs of a team may change as the development process progresses and leadership needs evolve.

1. Forming

During the formation stage, individuals are getting to know one another. They may have uncertainty regarding responsibilities/rights, goals, and working methods.

Here, clarity of purpose, agreements, roles, expectations, and opportunities for early collaboration should be provided.

The level of structure required will depend on the type of team. For this level of collaboration, the leader may need to actively guide in a directive manner while offering opportunities to participate and ask questions.

2. Storming

Conflict may arise due to the introduction and implementation of new ideas or methods. Teammates may challenge group or individual priorities and decisions. They may disagree about processes or even about the working styles of their colleagues.

Not all conflict is bad. Healthy conflict often helps teams identify and challenge their assumptions and develop new and more effective behaviors.

Conflict is an opportunity for healthy scaffolding. An agile leader can:

• Identify and make conflicts visible.
• Facilitate productive debate.
• Distinguish between people and their issues.
• Focus the team on shared objectives.
• Guide the team through conflict.
• Prevent one person or group from dominating the situation.

The degree of conflict experienced and the ability of the team to resolve the conflict will determine to what extent the leader will operate in a more supportive role.

3. Norming

In this stage, the team begins to develop trust and routines necessary for effective collaboration.

An agile leader can:

• Recognize and reinforce effective behaviors.
• Allow the team to develop its own processes.
• Make more decisions available to the team.
• Provide opportunities for the team to learn across functions.
• Help the team set and track objectives.
• The leader supports the team as it becomes more autonomous.

The leader’s role begins to shift from providing structure to strengthening autonomy.

4. Performing

During performing, the team works with a higher level of trust, coordination, and ownership. Members understand their roles, manage many issues independently, and focus on delivering value.

An agile leader can help by:

• Protecting the team’s autonomy.
• Removing organisational barriers.
• Providing strategic context.
• Encouraging innovation.
• Supporting continuous improvement.
• Intervening only when necessary.

The leader does not disappear. Instead, they focus on the wider system and create conditions that help the team remain effective.

When Situational Leadership Works Best?

This type of leadership style works well in the following scenarios:

• There is a difference in the experience level among team members.
• Growth or changes are happening in the team or on the project.
• Project demands and project risks fluctuate and change.
• There are specialists in the team from different fields with varied levels of confidence.
• New members enter a pre-existing team.
• An organization begins to adopt anagile methodology.
• There are temporary changes in the leadership style required to deal with a crisis.

The greatest risk is changing leadership styles and not communicating these changes to the team. Acting in leadership style changes unpredictably and with no explanation could appear to the team as untimely and most likely unjust. Balancing flexibility and communication is the most effective form of situational leadership.

Type 3: Transformational Leadership

This type of leadership deals with the vision and subsequent engagement of the team to help them understand the purposeful, important changes that need to happen in the team, organization, or industry as a whole.

A transformational agile leader assists the team in understanding the changes that are going to happen and the motivating factor that makes the changes significant.

Core Principles

1. Creating a clear vision

When developing a vision, the idea should be a destination where individuals can attain a common goal. In an agile environment, the vision must be clearly stated and dynamically adjusted to drive decision-making.

Strong visions answer the questions and concerns of:

• Who do we want to reach?
• What issue do we want to resolve?
• Why is this concern important?
• What result do we wish to achieve?
• How will we determine our progress?

For instance, “launch a new app by December” describes a delivery goal. “Making it easier for new investors to manage their savings” reflects a customer-centric vision.

2. Inspiring people

In agile work, the nature of the job is unpredictable and subject to change. Frequent and competing priorities can ultimately lead to a lack of motivation. Drive and purpose are derived from the understanding of how work contributes to an impact that is meaningful and valuable to the customer and the organization.

Inspiring and engaging people is not just about the rah-rah speech. Daily work can be connected to customer impact. Inspiration is demonstrated through decisions that are consistent and visible. It is also demonstrated through challenging goals, commitment, and progress that is communicated frankly and fairly.

Leaders connect daily work to customer impact and organizational purpose.

3. Empowering change

Leaders create new approaches to their work by allowing and supporting challenging and new ways of working. They stimulate and support new ideas and approaches through flexibility and an openness to failure.

Empowerment encompasses several elements. It is not just saying, "You can decide." It means that the necessary information has been given, the person is supported to learn from failed experiments, and the person is provided the resources to make the decision.

Purposeful empowerment is a working approach that is supported.

4. Investing in people

Transformational leadership identifies development as the responsibility of the organization. Managers offer people possibilities to expand their skills and take on broader accountabilities.

Transformational managers develop people to broaden their scopes of work beyond their job descriptions.

This can include mentoring, communities of practice, stretch assignments, peer learning, or exposure to customer and business problems.

How Does It Complement Servant and Situational Leadership?

Transformational leadership establishes the vision and energy, while servant leadership creates the necessary infrastructure to help people successfully reach their goals, and situational leadership ensures a leader’s style is aligned to best fit the current needs of the team.

Consider an organization that implements a new AI-based customer service platform:

• The transformational leader explains the positive impact this new customer service platform will have for customers and new opportunities it will provide for employees.
• The servant leader removes barriers, provides the support, learning, and collaboration needed for the team.
• The situational leader provides a higher degree of guidance to teams who are novice users of the technology, and allows other teams to self-direct.

These three approaches can be utilized in unison: one creates a sense of purpose, one empowers the team, and one adjusts the level of involvement.

When Transformational Leadership Works Best?

Transformational leadership can be utilized when:

• There is company-wide change
• Team/individual purpose is needed
• Current company processes fail to meet customer needs
• A culture of innovation is needed
• Change is piled on to company employees
• Alignment of multiple company teams is needed
• A shift from project-delivery to product-centric company focus is desired.

Transformational leadership will become ineffective if the vision is too unclear, unrealistic, or not matched to the operational priorities. Inspiration must be matched to practical company action.

How the Three Types Work Together? 

The three types of agile leadership address different dimensions of effective leadership. 

Transformational leadership is appropriate for describing a new product vision. Servant leadership is appropriate for the elimination of barriers or obstructions in order for employees to take ownership. Sometimes situational leadership may be helpful for determining the appropriate amount of guidance for each individual team.

Transformational leadership may be more appropriately described as follows:

• A clear sense of purpose and direction is established.
• Teams are assessed for capability and confidence in the current context.
• Guidance is appropriately selected and implemented.
• Support and obstacles are removed.
• The approach is adjusted based on the outcome.
• The aim is to create a team that requires less support and intervention.

The above approaches are applicable at different levels. For example, a vice president of an organization may demonstrate transformational leadership. A servant leadership approach may be more appropriate for an agile coach. A delivery manager may be required to employ a high degree of situational leadership.

Other Ways “Agile Leadership” Gets Grouped

The three models discussed above describe either leadership styles or approaches. However, leadership is described in other ways. These other models are not competing. Many describe behaviors, maturity, or practice; rather, they describe three styles of leadership.

The “3 Cs” of Agile Leadership

The 3 Cs model groups agile leadership around:

• Communication.
• Collaboration.
• Commitment.

1. Communication

Agile leaders communicate goals, priorities, constraints, decisions, risks, and changes clearly. They also create feedback loops so that information moves in both directions.

Good communication is not simply sending more messages. It means making important information visible and ensuring that people understand its implications.

2. Collaboration

Agile leaders encourage teams to solve problems together rather than passing work through isolated departments. Collaboration includes cross-functional planning, shared ownership, stakeholder involvement, and respectful disagreement.

The leader’s role is to create the conditions for collaboration by reducing silos and clarifying shared outcomes.

3. Commitment

Commitment refers to shared ownership of outcomes rather than blind agreement with every initial plan. Agile teams commit to a goal while remaining open to learning and adjustment.

A leader builds commitment by involving people in decisions, making expectations realistic, and connecting work to purpose. Commitment is stronger when people understand the decision and believe they can influence the result.

The Shu-Ha-Ri Maturity Model

Shu-Ha-Ri is a model for describing learning and mastery:

• Shu means following established rules and practices.
• Ha means understanding the principles behind the practices and adapting them.
• Ri means moving beyond formal rules and applying the underlying principles intuitively.

In an agile context, a team in the Shu stage may need clear guidance on Scrum, Kanban, or another framework. A team in the Ha stage may experiment with practices while preserving the principles that make them useful. 

Shu-Ha-Ri is not a ranking of people’s worth or a licence to ignore practices prematurely. A team that skips the learning stage may reject practices without understanding the problems they are designed to solve.

Solga’s Alignment and Empowerment Practices

Another way to understand agile leadership is through the balance between alignment and empowerment. Agile leaders must help teams move in the same strategic direction while giving them enough autonomy to explore, decide, and act.

Alignment can include:

• Motivating people around a meaningful purpose.
• Infusing work with shared values and commitment.
• Focusing attention on goals, priorities, roles, and boundaries.

Empowerment can include:

• Facilitating access to resources and decision-making authority.
• Coaching people and teams to operate effectively.
• Encouraging innovation through experimentation and reflection.

This model highlights a central challenge of agile leadership. Too much alignment without empowerment can become control. Too much empowerment without alignment can create fragmentation. Solga’s framework describes these alignment and empowerment practices as complementary parts of agile leadership.

What Are the Core Traits Shared Across All Agile Leadership Types?

While servant, situational, and transformational leadership styles have different elements, you will find some characteristics that make effective agile leaders.

1. Adaptability

Agile leaders are open to changing their strategies when the effects of doing so provide positive results. Agile leaders also understand that consistency does not mean rigidly adhering to the same behavior in every situation.

2. Humility

Agile leaders know that they don’t know it all, and they are inclined to work with their customers and stakeholders to gain more understanding. Humility does not mean low self-esteem. Quite the opposite, in fact, it means having the confidence to learn and revise.

3. Systems thinking

Agile leaders understand the impact of the entire system and its influence on the performance of the team. Leadership behavior impacts the system in conjunction with the incentives, processes, technology, and the surrounding work structure.

4. Transparency

Agile leaders create an environment which fosters better decision-making through the presence of clearly stated goals, priorities, and progress, as well as articulated risks and assumptions.

5. Emotional intelligence

Agile leaders are adept at recognizing not only their emotions but also the emotions of others to better manage change, conflict and situations that require motivation and feedback.

6. Courage

Effective agile leadership is characterized by the courage to question why we do what we do, to eliminate low-value work, to stop unnecessarily complicated processes, and to question and manage conflicts related to the realm of unrealistic goal setting.

7. Trust

Trust is built through reliable behavior, honest communication, and respect. Employees will be more likely to take ownership when they believe the leader will support them and not blame them for their errors.

8. Customer focus

Leaders who are agile maintain focus on outcomes and customer value. Simply completing a task or going through a process is not enough if the work does not solve a significant value-adding problem.

How to Develop Agile Leadership Skills?

Agile leadership is more achievable through direct involvement rather than through theory. The following steps can help.

1. Build self-awareness

Consider your reactions to delays, to changing priorities, and to disagreements among team members. Consider the following:

• Do I take over too much?
• Am I avoiding difficult conversations?
• Am I providing sufficient context?
• Am I listening?
• Am I encouraging ownership or creating dependency?

Feedback from colleagues, leadership assessments, and retrospective teams are good sources of information that can help reveal unconscious behaviors of which you are not aware.

2. Practise active listening

Active listening involves paying attention to both the content and the meaning of what someone is saying. Avoid preparing your reply while the other person is speaking.

Useful techniques include:

• Asking open questions.
• Paraphrasing what you heard.
• Clarifying assumptions.
• Leaving space for silence.
• Confirming the next step.

3. Learn to coach

Coaching does not mean refusing to give answers. It means helping people think through problems when they have the capacity to do so.

A simple coaching conversation may follow this sequence:

1. Clarify the issue.
2. Explore the impact.
3. Identify possible options.
4. Examine risks and trade-offs.
5. Agree on an action.
6. Review what was learned.

4. Improve facilitation skills

As a delegate, typically someone sets the outcome and context, defines the boundaries and decision-making authority, and sets the time to check on the result. Simply allocating a task without authority or context is not true delegation.

For example, a leader could say, “Conception and execution of a new customer campaign through the selected channels of your choosing, within the allocated budget. Share your thoughts after the first test.”

5. Practise delegation

Retrospectives can be used for a variety of events such as a marketing campaign, launch of a product, an incident in the operations process, and/or a strategic initiative. Focus on the activity, reason for the activity, and what the team will do next.

Do not let the session turn into a search for a scapegoat. The reason for the retrospective is to improve the process and the team's ability to respond.

6. Use retrospectives beyond Scrum

Agile leadership is stronger when leaders understand customer needs, commercial goals, and operational constraints and serve a market. Knowing the technical aspects of the process and its People and Process controls is insufficient.

Go out into the market and see the operational realities. Understand the customer and the business and the impact of the decisions on the customer and the business.

7. Develop business and customer understanding

Agile leadership is stronger when leaders understand customer needs, commercial goals, operational constraints, and market conditions. Technical process knowledge alone is not enough.

Spend time with customers, review data, understand the business model, and learn how decisions affect different stakeholders.

8. Practise adaptive behaviour

Before choosing a leadership response, assess the situation. Ask:

• Is the team capable of handling this independently?
• Is the problem urgent or can the team learn through exploration?
• Is the goal unclear, or is execution blocked?
• Does the team need direction, coaching, support, or autonomy?
• What leadership behaviour will build capability rather than dependency?

9. Create a personal development plan

Choose two or three behaviours to practise over a defined period. For example:

• Ask more questions before offering solutions.
• Delegate one important decision each week.
• Give clearer context during priority changes.
• Facilitate a retrospective focused on system improvement.
• Request feedback after a difficult stakeholder conversation.

Measure progress through observed behaviour and team outcomes, not through the number of agile meetings attended.

What Are the Common Misconceptions About Agile Leadership?

1. Agile leadership means no leadership

Leading and directing an agile team means exercising leadership differently; it does not mean there is no leadership.

2. Servant leaders must always be passive

Servant leadership may mean actively leading the team to address poor collaboration or poor interpersonal conflict, etc.

3. Self-organising teams need no manager

Self-organising a team means a team exercises agency, but not autonomy.

4. Agile leadership works just for software teams

Agile leadership works for the development of products, content, services, marketing and operations, and even for teaching and healthcare. Agile leadership even works for the entrepreneur.

5. Being flexible means always changing priorities.

Being flexible does not mean agreeing to everything that is asked. Agile leaders weigh calls for change against goals, evidence, customer value, and the opportunity cost.

6. Agile leadership means following a fixed checklist

Frameworks, practices, and checklists help build habits, but agile leadership is about making the right call at the right time. The leader must understand the reasoning behind the practice and context and act accordingly.

7. Transformational leadership is just about motivation

Transformational leadership is about delivering the vision and encouraging and inspiring people to change. It is also about hard work, building capabilities, and staying motivated and committed.

8. Agile leadership is a no-accountability leadership style

Distributing the ability to make decisions among team members does not remove the need to be accountable. Teams and their leaders must measure the results of their decisions and endeavours and address issues to learn.

Final Thoughts

The three types of agile leadership present an easy‑to‑understand way to help leaders support teams facing complexity and change.

Servant leadership helps teams grow, collaborate, and solve problems.

Situational leadership enables leaders to adapt their approach depending on circumstances.

Transformational leadership inspires individuals to envision goals and believe in their ability to change.

Effective agile leaders avoid treating these methods as rigid frameworks. Instead, they combine them as the situation demands. They know when to provide direction, when to offer space for autonomy, and when to roll up their sleeves with the team to eliminate obstacles.

Ultimately, agile leadership is about using power responsibly rather than controlling through authority. It means clarifying and directing goals with purpose, empowering individuals to take responsibility for their work, and remaining accountable for impact and value.

  For professionals pursuingCAL 1 Certification, these leadership styles are not just theory — they are practical skills that enhance credibility, improve team outcomes, and prepare leaders to drive organizational agility.