How Leadership Communication Can Destroy Team Morale | Simina Fodor

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches
Episode: How Leadership Communication Can Destroy Team Morale | Simina Fodor
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Simina Fodor
Release Date: May 13, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in an enlightening conversation with Simina Fodor, an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach. The discussion delves deep into the critical role of leadership communication and its profound impact on team morale within Agile environments. Drawing from Simina’s personal experiences, the episode underscores the delicate balance Scrum Masters must maintain when interacting with both their teams and organizational leadership.

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Book Inspiration: "The Making of a Manager" by Julie Zhu

Simina Fodor begins by sharing her unexpected source of inspiration: The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhu. Contrary to typical Scrum Master recommendations, Simina found profound value in this book, which initially seemed misaligned with her servant leadership approach.

"Great managers don't have all the answers. They're basically just there to support the team and make the team thrive in any type of environment."
— Simina Fodor [01:25]

This insight reinforced her belief in "humans first," emphasizing the importance of understanding and valuing team members beyond frameworks and processes.

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The Team Story: Project Challenges and Leadership Missteps

Simina recounts a poignant story from her mid-career years, highlighting how leadership communication pitfalls can derail even the most motivated teams.

Project Context

• Objective: Retiring several legacy systems in a high-impact, high-visibility corporate project.
• Team Composition: Diverse group from different countries, varying seniority levels, and remote settings.
• Constraints: Strict regulatory deadlines and contractual obligations with vendors, limiting the application of standard Scrum principles.

Initial Team Dynamics

The team excelled in collaboration and commitment, demonstrated by:

• Extra Effort: Team members willingly worked overtime, sacrificed personal time, and remained personally invested in the project’s success.
• Strong Team Spirit: Effective communication and team-building activities fostered a highly motivated and cohesive unit.

Leadership Communication Breakdown

Simina took an initiative to recognize the team’s hard work by preparing a business case to recommend bonus performances for all team members. This gesture, however, was not aligned with the organizational processes.

"I started with something informal. I prepared the business case and I was recommending all of the team members for bonus performances... it came back not as we'd expect."
— Simina Fodor [03:36]

Outcome:

• Rejection and Public Dismissal: The leadership team rejected the bonus recommendations and publicly downplayed the team’s extra efforts, attributing overtime to standard job expectations.
• Team Disengagement: Initially engaged members began withdrawing, skipping retrospectives, reducing participation in standups, and overall losing their motivation.
• Performance Decline: The team’s velocity dropped, demos became lackluster, and the project ultimately missed its deadline, necessitating external intervention.

"In Agile settings and in Scrum settings, the role of a Scrum Master is really important. And the way that they behave and they act even around politics and internal processes can make or break a team."
— Simina Fodor [08:50]

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Analysis: Leadership’s Role in Team Morale

Moderator's Insight:

The moderator offers a critical perspective, suggesting that the root cause was not Simina’s action but the flawed leadership response. Leadership's inability to appreciate and reward the team adequately led to the collapse of morale.

"Instead of thank you for your effort, we really appreciate you, but we don't have budget... This communication... created disengagement."
— Moderator [08:50]

Simina’s Reflection:

Simina acknowledges her sense of responsibility but emphasizes organizational culture and leadership openness as pivotal factors.

"I do have a tendency of getting involved personally. I did feel personally offended by the decision of the leadership."
— Simina Fodor [10:54]

Key Takeaways:

1. Importance of Recognition: Regular acknowledgment of team efforts is crucial for maintaining morale and motivation.
2. Alignment with Organizational Processes: Initiatives by Scrum Masters to reward teams must align with company policies to avoid misunderstandings.
3. Leadership’s Influence: Leadership communication and actions significantly impact team dynamics and project outcomes.

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Organizational Health and Leadership Strategies

Simina highlights the necessity for organizations to foster openness and adaptability, allowing Scrum Masters and other Agile practitioners to influence positively.

"It's really worth it to have like a champion, someone from the leadership team that can influence things internally."
— Simina Fodor [13:18]

She warns against rigid organizational structures that resist change, often leading to toxic environments detrimental to both teams and leadership.

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Conclusion

This episode serves as a powerful reminder of the intricate dance between Scrum Masters, teams, and leadership. Effective leadership communication, recognition, and alignment with team efforts are not mere niceties but essential components that sustain team morale and project success. Simina Fodor’s experience underscores the profound impact that leadership decisions and communication styles can have, reinforcing the pivotal role Scrum Masters play in bridging gaps and fostering healthy, productive Agile environments.

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Notable Quotes

• Simina Fodor [01:25]: "Great managers don't have all the answers. They're basically just there to support the team and make the team thrive in any type of environment."
• Simina Fodor [03:36]: "In Agile settings and in Scrum settings, the role of a Scrum Master is really important. And the way that they behave and they act even around politics and internal processes can make or break a team."
• Moderator [08:50]: "Leadership, with that kind of communication, completely dismissed their effort. They basically said, your effort is not valued by us."
• Simina Fodor [10:54]: "I did have a tendency of getting involved personally. I did feel personally offended by the decision of the leadership."

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Final Thoughts

For Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and team leaders, this episode offers invaluable lessons on the fragile nature of team morale and the critical importance of thoughtful, appreciative leadership communication. Recognizing and valifying team efforts not only sustains motivation but also fortifies the very foundation upon which successful Agile projects are built.

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Stay tuned for more insightful conversations on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast to enhance your Agile journey.

Transcript

[Host]

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to make Agile work well? At the Global Agile Summit, we're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action. Whether you're a leader, a product innovator, a developer, you'll hear practical insights from those who've done it. They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode. So stay back and listen to the full detailed description of what we have in store for you at the Global Agile Summit. But if you can't wait, you can go right now to globalagilesummit.com and check out our full schedule for now onto the episode. But I'll see you at the end of this episode with more details on the Global Agile Summit. Talk to you soon.

[Moderator]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our Team Tuesday this week with Simina Fodor. Hey Simina, welcome back.

[Simina Fodor]

Hey everyone. Glad to be here.

[Moderator]

So Tuesday is Team Tuesday. But before we dive into the team story, do share with us. Eminating what was the book that most inspired you in your career as a Scrum Master? Sure.

[Simina Fodor]

Well, this is a really interesting one because unlike most Scrum Masters that may have been inspired by different books, this is about edge. So you're going to be surprised about this one. It's actually the Making of a Manager by Julie Zhu and it's one of those books that had a really high impact on me because it was one of the books that was recommended by a friend when I formally started the Scrum Master role and I immediately dismissed it like, this book isn't for me. This is for people that are just starting out to be a manager. And I'm not a manager, I'm a servant leader. But while going through the book, there were a lot of things that resonated with me. There were a lot of concepts about great managers, and the thing that most stuck with me is that great managers don't have all the answers. They're basically just there to support the team and make the team thrive in any type of environment. So the one advice that I have for Scrum Masters is never dismiss recommendations from other people because you might be surprised. Whether you're really into Agile or other concepts or frameworks, it's really important to learn about Humans first. This is a book that I highly recommend to people, not just about Agile, but about management and Humans First.

[Moderator]

Humans first, which is of course one of the most important aspects and ideas that we should always have in mind as Scrum masters, because at least for now, it is people who write software.

[Host]

Yes, we don't know how long that.

[Moderator]

Will last, but at least for now it is humans who work together to write software. Simida, thank you for sharing that book. And we'll put the link in the show notes so that people can go and check it out. Of course, now we turn our attention to teams and how sometimes they can become their own worst enemies. So, Simina, share with us a story of a team.

[Host]

Tell us a little bit about the.

[Moderator]

Context so that you know, you know, how big project, how big the team, and so on. But then walk us through those steps, those behaviors, those things that started emerging in the team that eventually showed that.

[Host]

They were a big problem and that.

[Moderator]

There was this big anti pattern emerging in the team.

[Simina Fodor]

Yep, sure. So this was something that happened to me quite some some years ago. I'm old in that fashion and here in Transylvania we live longer than most people.

[Moderator]

So it was 200 years longer, I hear.

[Simina Fodor]

Well, it depends. Our listeners might want to try to guess my age. We'll see how that goes. But yeah, getting back to the topic at hand, it was one of the projects that I was working with. It wasn't that early in my career, I would call it somewhat mid career. And we were working on retiring several legacy systems. This was in a corporate setting. The legacy systems had been in the company for several decades. So it was a really high impact project. It was a really high visibility type of initiative. And the people that we gathered for the project, the actual project team was comprised out of folks from different countries. So it was a whole remote setting. And it was basically comprised out of people that were working with different seniority. So it was a whole mix of people, both remote personalities, cultures, and everything that you could think of in terms of, let's call it mix and variation. Now we were working with a really strict deadline, so that meant that we didn't necessarily apply all of the Scrum principles and we didn't necessarily have like a really straightforward approach in terms of frameworks. We were working with a really strict deadline because we had the regulatory deadline to consider. And we were also talking about contracts with vendors. So we knew we had to get the project done in time. There was no opportunity to miss the deadline. One of the good things about this project is the team came together like no one would imagine. So we basically worked on team building. We worked on a lot of things about communication. And it was one of the most amazing things that I had ever worked with up until that point in time. So everyone was doing extra time. They were really involved, they were doing overtime, they were giving up their hobbies and their vacations just to make sure that this was everyone's focus. So it was one of those type of initiatives where people felt like personally invested and they were not necessarily seeing the project or the company as a goal, but they were personally invested in seeing the success of now. The thing that I did that actually is the focus of the question that you asked is because I was seeing a lot of effort in everyone, I wanted to find a way to thank the team and I did something uninformal. I started with something uninformal. I prepared the business case and I was recommending all of the team members for bonus performances. This wasn't part of a typical process and it kind of spinned and it came back not as we'd expect. So not only was my request rejected, but the leadership team also decided to make it public and spin it as not part of our regular process and try to somehow tell the team that, well, overtime is just part of the job. Overtime comes with the territory. You get the chance to work on this amazing project. So what happened after that is that there was a lot of disengagement from everyone. For the team, it started with small things, like people weren't participating in retos anymore. They didn't feel safe voicing out their opinions. The daily standups weren't daily standups anymore. Folks were asking, can I skip today? I don't feel that well. And the whole pattern that I saw here is we originally started with a team that was highly engaged, highly focused, highly motivated. But by one small change that the Scrum Master did, which in this case was me, it broke the whole ecosystem in terms of trust. So with more small thing, it basically rolled into something like a snowball, if you will. It rolled into something so big that we got to a point where people were not necessarily invested into the project. They weren't as. As motivated as they were before, and they weren't given 100%. So we had certain things that were missed. We had demos that, with the new applications that weren't as successful as they could have been. Our velocity dropped, our metrics didn't look good, and we ended up missing our deadline. So we had to bring an internal contractor to help us with the project. And the key takeaway here that I had as a Scrum Master is that in Agile settings and in Scrum settings, the role of a Scrum Master is really Important. And the way that they behave and they act even around politics and internal processes can make or break a team. And in this case, it actually did broke the team.

[Moderator]

Yeah, And I can totally see that. And I empathize with perhaps even the sense of responsibility that you feel for that story. But I can't help but see that actually the biggest problem was not what you did, but rather the way that leadership reacted to what you did. Now, you could not foresee that. And also it wasn't within your control. But when leadership goes and says, instead of thank you for your effort, we really appreciate you, but we don't have budget. And instead of saying that, they say, hey, we wouldn't give you budget any. We wouldn't give you bonuses anyway because it's not part of our process. And why are you asking for money? Overtime is what you should be doing anyway. Of course you're going to break people's motivation. They are doing their best. They're giving up on things that are important for them personally to invest into the project. And leadership, with that kind of communication, completely dismissed their effort. They basically said, your effort is not valued by us. You should be doing even more effort and not complain about it. And of course that's going to create disengagement. So even though I can totally see that you have a sense of responsibility for taking that action and making that suggestion, looking at it from the outside, I have to say this looks a lot more like a problem of a destructive leadership rather than an action that you or anybody else could have done. Because anybody could have said, hey, let's organize a dinner for the team, let's fly them over, spend three days at the office and make sure we have some time with leadership and the team to thank them for their effort. And it probably would have happened the same way like it did in this case. Right? Like leadership would say, no, no, no, we're not traveling anymore. Everyone's remote, we don't care. People should just work 20 hours a day if it's necessary, just hit the deadline.

[Simina Fodor]

Yeah. And it's really important. What you also mentioned so the fact that people want to be seen and their efforts being recognized, this could have been handled in so many different ways and indeed the solution could have been so much easier. But my key takeaway after this is so I always strive on the things that I can improve, especially when it comes to my approach to different themes. And I do have a tendency of getting involved personally. So I did felt a sense. I did feel a sense of responsibility towards the team. Because although I didn't let them know in advance, hey, I'm doing this thing, I'm raising a business case, hopefully you can get some, some bonuses. I did feel personally offended by the decision of the leadership. I mean, these people went above and beyond. Some of them canceled their vacations. I mean, they didn't spend the times with their wives and kids and stuff like, and the fact that we couldn't make anything happen. Or even a simple email like, hey, thank you for your efforts, you're awesome. Keep doing the things you're doing. So they weren't being seen.

[Moderator]

I think the email would be even a poor reaction from leadership. A proper leader would be there with them when they're doing overtime.

[Simina Fodor]

Exactly.

[Moderator]

You have, as a leader, you have to show the example. And a leader who doesn't do overtime with the team, they might do it in secret somewhere or in meetings with other leaders, that's fine. But if they don't do overtime with the team, they have no right to dismiss the overtime that the team is doing. It is not okay. And you said it very clearly. When people are not seen, they are not recognized, they stop caring. And it's actually healthy to stop caring. It's actually even a good reaction to stop caring. Because if people don't care about what you do, you shouldn't either.

[Simina Fodor]

Yeah, true. So true.

[Moderator]

It's a sad story, but I think that for our listeners, it's really important to also understand that we need to help leaders as well as Scrum Masters. We are leaders in practice, but we are also examples for other leaders. And we do need to help other leaders to act the right way with the teams that are going above and beyond the call of duty, as you just described.

[Simina Fodor]

Yes, but it's also a matter of organization. So it depends on the openness and the willingness to change. If you have an organization that's really set in their ways, they're not going to listen to a Scrum Master or product owner or anything in those lines. So situations like this, what I found in past experience, it's really worth it to have like a champion, someone from the leadership team that can influence things internally. So if you don't have that line, what I've noticed in the past, it doesn't really work the way we'd expect. And organizations like that do have a tendency to become toxic, not only for developers, but for teams in general, whether that's Agile or Scrum or not.

[Moderator]

And for the leaders as well. They just don't recognize it initially, but they will suffer it later. It was a great story though, so thank you for sharing that. Simina.

[Simina Fodor]

Sure thing.

[Host]

Hey friend, thank you for staying here is all you need to know about the Global Agile Summit if you've ever suffered or know people who are suffering from Agile fatigue, this event is for you. Agile fatigue is that feeling that settles in when we can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. We get discouraged, especially when conversations revolve around the same old frameworks, the same old buzzwords and theories. We don't feel that energy anymore. Well, the Global Agile Summit is a different kind of event. We're bringing you real life first person stories of agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action and transform the way you work. The Global Agile Summit will happen In Tallinn, Estonia, May 18th. That's the workshop day. And then 19th and 20th, the conference day. And Tallinn, Estonia is one of the most innovative tech hubs in Europe. The Global Agile Summit is hosted together with Latitude 59, which is kind of a citywide celebration of software startups and groundbreaking ideas. And we'll have a shared ticket for you to attend those events as well. So who will be speaking? Well, we've got an incredible lineup of thought leaders in software and agile. For example, Clinton Keith, the person who wrote, literally wrote the book on game development with Scrum and is busy bringing Agile to the world of game development. You, you must check his session. The very famous and well known Jurgen Apello, author of Management 3.0, will be talking and exploring about AI's impact on leadership. We also have Goiko Adsic, who's taking an unconventional look at product growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example, Sixven Dietz, who's challenging everything we know about software development by ditching, literally ditching contracts and estimates. Can you imagine his teams deliver software before their competitors are even done with a contract negotiation? How agile is that? But there's more. We'll cover engineering practices in our developer track with talks on, for example, AI assisted testing, driven development, developing products in minutes with a different approach to how we develop, configure, deploy platforms, and much more. We also have a product track where we cover cutting edge ideas around product discovery, delighting customers with product delight frameworks. We'll have a talk about that. And we also have an Agile business track where we will talk about, for example, open strategy, a very agile approach to managing organizations and delivering software faster to clients faster than you can even write a contract.

[Moderator]

Literally.

[Host]

I mean, I already told you about Svendeet's story is amazing. It definitely is a must see. I'm sure you'll be inspired and get a lot of ideas for your own software projects and software delivery. Now whether you're a business leader, a product innovator, or a developer, you'll definitely find value in our three focused tracks. That's Agile Business for those working with businesses and organizations Agile Product for product managers, product owners and innovators and Agile Developer for the builders making Agile work in practice. The coders, the testers, the designers, the producers, the Scrum masters, you name it. If you join, you will meet over 200 agile professionals from all over the world. People who just like you, want to grow, want to share, and want to learn. By challenging the ideas that don't work anymore at the Global Agile Summit, you'll get new connections, fresh ideas, and the energy to take your own Agile to the next level. And who knows, maybe even find your next career opportunity. So don't miss out. Check out the full program and grab your ticket [e-mail] I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May. I'll see you there.

[Moderator]

Sam.