3C's of Project Management

What is a Project?: A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end, undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. Most people view a project as a designated set of tasks needed to accomplish a particular goal.

What is Project Management?: Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives.

Who is a Project Manager?: : The person responsible for the project.

As you can see the definition is a Project Manager is very broad and vague. This is exactly why this skill or job is often misrepresented and misinterpreted too. Each organization defines this role differently, each project within the organization may have a different definition for PM, each PM carves his/her role differently... so on and so forth.
Whatever may be the exact role definition of the PM on a particular project, here are the 3 C's that make an effective PM:
1. Competency: By competency, I am referring two different competencies:
a) Industry/Domain Knowledge: Although the pure definition of project management is industry neutral, it is very important for the PM to have the domain/industry knowledge so he/she can ask the right questions to the right people to get the right answers and truly understand what is it that needs to be done, how to do it and within what constraints. It is the industry knowledge that lets the PM anticipate the pitfalls that can happen and be able to guide the team around them and also be able to prepare and plan for them proactively.
b) Core Skills: By this I mean expertise in the core project management tasks like project estimation, planning, resource planning, etc and the skills to use the right tools to accomplish these tasks.
2. Communication: It is key for a Project Manager who is the 'Go-to' person/communication hub for all people directly and indirectly involved with the project to be an effective communicator. He/She is the one who needs to be able to communicate up and communicate down and at each level make sure the right message is being conveyed so the right actions are taken.
3. Courage: The PM is the one who is viewed as the objective body that is ultimately responsible for the project and hence needs to be able to keep a clear head and judge the status of the project impartially and objectively all the time. He/she needs to not only know the details of what is happening now, but also keep looking ahead to be able to steer the ship in the right direction. He/She is the person who needs to have the courage and integrity to communicate not just the good but also the bad and ugly and be able to act with an edge and make the difficult decisions, have the difficult conversations that are needed to steer the project out of trouble.
It is ultimately about understanding a business goal, understanding how to get it done in the most optimal way within the constraints of the situation, being able to communicate at all levels, being able to motivate and direct people, being able to deal with stress, problems and being organized enough to make sure all that needs to be done is getting done at the right time.