Servant Leadership

A leadership style where the leader's main job is to serve the team by removing impediments and enabling its success.

Servant leadership is the mindset PMI emphasizes most strongly, especially in agile and hybrid environments. A servant leader prioritizes the team’s needs over personal authority, removes impediments, facilitates collaboration, and creates conditions for self-organization — acting as a coach and enabler rather than a director. The exam contrasts it with autocratic or directive leadership, where the leader retains decision-making authority; the servant leader pushes decisions to those closest to the work. Applying command-and-control to an empowered team is a classic wrong-answer trap.

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