is it an escalation?

Well, I would hope that they are servant leaders. A Scrum Master ought to inspire others towards that greater leadership.

A good servant leader, when presented with an issue, would resolve it as a matter of de-escalation.

Words "Leading roles" is not appropritate for Scrum Master. Scrum Master is a Servant Leader and Fecilitaor. Servant leadership is a leadership approach that puts serving others above all other priorities. 

Scrum Master is a leader who serves. This may mean leading the way on Scrum adoption, or organizational change or as Ian mentioned, inspiring others towards leadership. This change in the 2020 guide was to emphasize the importance of Scrum Masters as leaders and not as servants. Servant leadership is an approach a Scrum Master can use in their leadership.

What other context was given in relation to PO being a leading role? Product Owner is accountable for the product and maximizing the value of the product. They will provide leadership in this regard. I don’t think it would be ideal to have the PO as a reporting leader of team members. Maybe some additional context would help us in offering ideas.

Scrum Master may cause the removal of impediments, but that doesn’t mean they will be the person to remove it. If the team can remove it themselves they should be encouraged to self-manage and do so (as an example).

There are no hierarchies in Scrum teams. How the teams members will build actual relationships based on roles, experience, relation to value streams and income, and roles within an organisation its a seperate question.

Hello All,

According to my opinion, The roles of the Product Owner (PO) and the Scrum Master in Scrum are distinct, and their responsibilities contribute to the success of the Scrum team, but they are not considered traditional "leading" roles in the sense of hierarchical leadership. Let's clarify the roles:

1. Product Owner (PO):
   • The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product by managing and prioritizing the product backlog.
   • The PO is the voice of the customer and is crucial for making decisions about what features should be developed and in what order.
2. Scrum Master:
   • The Scrum Master is a servant-leader for the Scrum team, facilitating Scrum events, removing impediments, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
   • The Scrum Master is not a traditional project manager; their role is to help the team understand and adopt Scrum principles and practices.

In a self-organizing Scrum team, everyone collaborates to achieve the common goal, and leadership is distributed among team members. The Scrum Master and Product Owner provide leadership in their specific areas of expertise, but they are not "leading" in a traditional managerial sense.

Regarding the idea that bringing issues to the Scrum Master is considered an escalation, this perspective may vary. In a healthy Scrum team, communication is open, and team members should feel empowered to raise concerns or impediments. The Scrum Master's role includes helping to resolve impediments and facilitating communication, but it's not necessarily an escalation—it's part of the collaborative nature of the team.

It's essential to foster a culture of openness and trust within the team, where everyone feels comfortable bringing up issues and working together to find solutions. If team members view discussing problems with the Scrum Master as an escalation, it might be worth exploring why this perception exists and how to address it to promote a more collaborative environment.

Regards

Jack Smith

"leading" is something every team member can do. A Developer can also be leading by showing team mates a new practice he learned and coaching them in using it. A Developer can see there is a conflict between a few team members and open up the conversation, bringing it back to the challenge at hand, and in that way be leading the team.
So leading is not only something the Scrum Master and Product Owner should do. Every team member can lead.

How do you define "escalation"?
In any way, the team is expected to be self-managing. Therefore it is a team issue, not a Scrum Master issue.
It might be that today the Scrum Master is best placed to deal with this specific "escalation". It would be expected though that in the future other team members together, in a collaborative effort, deal with such an "escalation". 
It is up to the Scrum Master to guide them to reach such a level.

Hope this helps.
Feel free to shoot more questions!
 
PS You might be interested in my blog posts about the fundamentals of the Scrum framework. If so, please check out this page: https://boostyourscrum.com/professional-scrum-foundations-series/