The standard for project management

The value of project managers is not in their position, but in their ability to make everyone else better.

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Section 4

4.2.3 PROJECT MANAGERS USE SERVANT LEADERSHIP

The 

PMBOK

®

 Guide

 – Sixth Edition, defines the project manager as “the person assigned by the performing 

organization to lead the team that is responsible for achieving the project objectives.”

Many project managers are accustomed to being at the center of coordination for the project, tracking and 

representing the team’s status to the rest of the organization. This approach was fine when projects were decomposed 

into siloed functions.

However, in high-change projects, there is more complexity than one person can manage. Instead, cross-functional 

teams coordinate their own work and collaborate with the business representative (the product owner).

When working on an agile project, project managers shift from being the center to serving the team and the 

management. In an agile environment, project managers are servant leaders, changing their emphasis to coaching 

people who want help, fostering greater collaboration on the team, and aligning stakeholder needs. As a servant leader, 

project managers encourage the distribution of responsibility to the team: to those people who have the knowledge to 

get work done.