Hi David. Often Scrum purists will use an example of a particular team that used Scrum and say, "It worked there, so I know it can work". Well yes, the same can be said of waterfall teams.

Similarly, I have heard people say, "I had a team that was self organized, and it worked great", but on further discussion I learned that they played a major role mentoring the team - so in fact it was probably their leadership that helped the team to work well. They then ascribe its success to self organization - when really it was their leadership that made the difference.

IME leadership is the key. The Scrum Guide has been improving in that area - I expect that eventually they will figure it out :-)

Here is an article about how the Scrum Guide's view of leadership has changed over the years: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/scrum-very-confused-leadership-cliff-berg/