The role of project management varies greatly depending on the kind of project and the environment you work in. I work with software and data where the role of a project manager is often mainly about communication and facilitation rather than giving direction to a team. I believe that's very different to construction and engineering where the PM often has much more of a leadership role.

In technology and knowledge work it's almost inevitable that the team's collective expertise will exceed the expertise of any one non-specialist manager. For that reason, many technical teams will manage themselves and rely on customers / SMEs rather than PMs to make the decisions about what is done and when.

Specifically in the software field, DevOps and continuous delivery techniques mean that most software development tends to happen outside the scope of any project. Product management usually matters more than project management.