diff --git a/cmd/argo/commands/server.go b/cmd/argo/commands/server.go
index f50ad9d85c33..8e9a1dd655c3 100644
--- a/cmd/argo/commands/server.go
+++ b/cmd/argo/commands/server.go
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ See %s`, help.ArgoSever),
 	// "-e" for encrypt, like zip
 	command.Flags().BoolVarP(&secure, "secure", "e", false, "Whether or not we should listen on TLS.")
 	command.Flags().BoolVar(&htst, "hsts", true, "Whether or not we should add a HTTP Secure Transport Security header. This only has effect if secure is enabled.")
-	command.Flags().StringArrayVar(&authModes, "auth-mode", []string{"server"}, "API server authentication mode. Any 1 or more length permutation of: client,server,sso")
+	command.Flags().StringArrayVar(&authModes, "auth-mode", []string{"client"}, "API server authentication mode. Any 1 or more length permutation of: client,server,sso")
 	command.Flags().StringVar(&configMap, "configmap", "workflow-controller-configmap", "Name of K8s configmap to retrieve workflow controller configuration")
 	command.Flags().BoolVar(&namespaced, "namespaced", false, "run as namespaced mode")
 	command.Flags().StringVar(&managedNamespace, "managed-namespace", "", "namespace that watches, default to the installation namespace")
diff --git a/docs/cli/argo_server.md b/docs/cli/argo_server.md
index c9047979db37..6847c59344f6 100644
--- a/docs/cli/argo_server.md
+++ b/docs/cli/argo_server.md
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ See https://argoproj.github.io/argo-workflows/argo-server.md
 
 ```
       --access-control-allow-origin string   Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin header in HTTP responses.
-      --auth-mode stringArray                API server authentication mode. Any 1 or more length permutation of: client,server,sso (default [server])
+      --auth-mode stringArray                API server authentication mode. Any 1 or more length permutation of: client,server,sso (default [client])
       --basehref string                      Value for base href in index.html. Used if the server is running behind reverse proxy under subpath different from /. Defaults to the environment variable BASE_HREF. (default "/")
   -b, --browser                              enable automatic launching of the browser [local mode]
       --configmap string                     Name of K8s configmap to retrieve workflow controller configuration (default "workflow-controller-configmap")