Servant Leadership in Tech Isn't Soft - It's Scalable
- Kjell Moens
- May 12
- 1 min read
A manager once asked me, “Aren’t you being too soft with the team?”
I had just rolled out:
- Weekly 1:1s with engineers
- Roadmap planning sessions with input from ICs
- A new habit of asking why before saying no
- Enabling people to choose their growth path and supporting them
To him, it looked like I was pulling back.
But I wasn't softening. I was engineering for scale.
Servant leadership isn’t about being nice.
It’s about building systems where:
People feel trusted enough to take ownership
Obstacles are removed so engineers can focus on delivering
Problems surface early, without blame
People are setup for success, not failure
Communication flows before things break
Teams move fast because they understand the why - not just the what
That’s not weakness. That’s leverage.
I’ve worked with teams where everything flows through fear:
Engineers ship fast - but burn out faster
No one raises concerns until production goes down
Morale dies, and eventually so does velocity
What looks like “hard leadership” in the short term often creates fragility. Servant leadership builds something much harder to break: trust.
And trust is the only thing that scales when systems, stakes, and teams grow.
Being a servant leader doesn’t mean letting go of standards. It means making space for people to rise to them.
What kind of leadership style do you prefer ?
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