The Servant Leader as a Catalyst: An Empirical Investigation of Servant Leadership in Agile Project Management

Authors

• Anuraj Sangha

  Business and Management, Yorkville University, Concord, Canada

  anuraj.sangha@yorkvilleu.ca

  ORCID: 0009-0009-1258-9055

• DOI https://doi.org/10.63329/av3nz12316

Abstract

Agile project management has become a dominant paradigm for managing complex projects, emphasizing flexibility, customer collaboration, and self-organizing teams. However, traditional, hierarchical leadership models often conflict with Agile’s core values, creating a significant leadership gap. Servant leadership, a philosophy where the leader’s primary goal is to serve the team, is theorized to be a natural fit. This study empirically investigates the impact of servant leadership on key project outcomes within Agile environments. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was administered to 68 project management professionals, selected via purposive sampling, who were actively working in Agile teams. Data was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results provide robust support for all hypotheses, indicating that servant leadership has a significant positive effect on team performance (β = 0.45, p < 0.001), team member satisfaction (β = 0.52, p < 0.001), and project success (β = 0.38, p < 0.001). These findings underscore that adopting servant leadership is a strategic lever for enhancing team dynamics and achieving superior project outcomes in Agile settings. The study offers practical implications for organizations and lays the groundwork for future research.

Keywords: Servant Leadership, agile project management, team performance, team satisfaction, project success

Copyright & License
© 2025 The Author.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.