Bliki: Host Leadership

19 February 2026

Martin Fowler

agile

team organization

technical 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.