When we look at the “big picture” of SAFe, we see that there are different levels and in each of them several roles. Some of these roles are placed in positions that, at first glance, may seem to reflect traditional hierarchical leadership, in which some roles are considered superior to others. However, in SAFe the distribution of roles and responsibilities should not be confused with a strict hierarchical leadership structure.

In certain transformations where SAFe is used as a frame of reference, the situation arises where a person chooses the role based on how high he/she is in the drawing and according to the size of the icon’s head. Let’s imagine a person who has been in charge of a team for years, has arrived there with effort and sacrifice, and now suddenly they come up with a new way of working and will lose their position as boss… situations of “I want to be this big guy at the top” have happened and will happen as long as the Agile transformation is not accompanied correctly.

The scaling model responds to Lean Agile principles, which is based on self-organized teams. According to SAFe principles, the role of leaders is to develop leaders, not to develop controllers or supervisors.

The Agile principles to be supported by these leaders should take into account the following principles:

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

Types and styles of Leadership

SAFe takes David Bradford and Allan Cohen’s “Managing for Excellence” as a reference for types of leadership. It describes 3 different leadership styles:

• Leader as expert
• Leader as driver
• Leader as developer

Leader as expert

This leadership model can be effective when the manager has more knowledge than the people on the team.

This leader stands out for his technical characteristics or mastery as a “craftsman”. His role in the team or organization is that of “problem solver”, he is the person people go to for answers. This leader can work when people leave him “alone”.

Normally, he was promoted because he was the best at doing his job.

The major challenges it faces are:

• Limits the learning of team members
• It is highly focused on technical problems to the detriment of human factors.

Leader as driver

This leader is most effective when coordination is a prerequisite for maximizing performance. It can be especially effective in large organizations where political burdens are very high.

Its main features are:

• It is the center of decision making, the central nerve, the coordinator.
• Orchestrates all the individual parts of the organization into a whole, seeking collaborative harmony.
• Subtly manipulates to your solution(the Facipulator)
• Your real job is to coordinate the others

This type of leadership presents several challenges:

• Limits the focus of team members to their area only
• Conflicts have to be resolved by “the boss”.
• The system and processes are used to control the work.
• Benefits of self-organized teams do not occur

Leader as a developer of people

This is the leadership style known as “Servant Leader”. Your mission is to create a team that is jointly responsible for success.

This type of leadership has several benefits:

• increasing the responsibility of team members
• improves team commitment and motivation
• It allows the leader to spend more time managing laterally and upward.

Leadership according to SAFe

From SAFe’s point of view, these are three perfectly valid leadership styles. It will be the context and maturity level of the team that will dictate which is appropriate.

Although any of these leaders must be clear on the premise of the SAFe principles:

• Unlocks workers’ intrinsic motivation
• Decentralizes decision making.

Lean-Agile leaders understand that ideation, innovation and knowledge worker participation generally cannot be motivated by individual incentive compensation. After all, individual goals cause internal competition and destroy the cooperation needed to achieve the larger system goal. Providing autonomy and purpose, while minimizing constraints, leads to higher levels of employee engagement, which translates into better results for customers and the company.