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Leadership by the Project Manager

March 16, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: HR Management, Leadership, Team Building

Leadership by the Project Manager (#6 in the series Requirements for an Effective Project Team and for Excellent Teamwork)
By Dr.Russell Archibald

Extensive literature exists on the subject of leadership, and it is not the intent here to treat this complex and important subject in any detail. The key point to be made is that the project manager is expected to be the leader of the project. Successful project managers have used many different styles and methods of leadership, depending on their own personalities, experience, interpersonal skills and technical competence on the one hand, and the characteristics of the project and its environment on the other. Owens1 concluded the following regarding project leadership and related behavioral topics:

  • Leadership behavior. Project managers cannot rely on one particular leadership style to influence other people’s behavior. Different situations call for different approaches, and leaders must be sensitive to the unique features of circumstances and personalities.
  • Motivational techniques. An awareness of unfulfilled needs residing in the team is required to successfully appraise motivational requirements and adjust a job’s design to meet those needs.
  • Interpersonal and organizational communications. Conflict situations occur regularly. A problem-solving or confrontation approach (confronting the problem and not the persons), using informal group sessions, can be a useful resolution strategy.
  • Decision-making and team-building skills. Participative decision making meets the needs of individual team members and contributes toward effective decisions and team unity.

Note: Project managers must be given appropriate leadership training prior to their being put in charge of any major project.

1 Owens, Stephen D., “Project Management and Behavioral Research Revisited,” Project Management Institute Proceedings (Toronto 1982), p II-F.1.

Dr. Russell D. Archibald, PhD (Hon), MSc, Fellow PMI and APM/IPMA, PMP, is one of the six founding members of the Project Management Institute. Now semi-retired, he has many years of management experience in engineering and operations with a variety of major US corporations in Europe and South America as well as the US. He has made major contributions to the understanding of project management, is author of the best selling 2003 book “Managing High-Technology Programs and Projects” (published also in Russian, Chinese, and Italian), has trained more than a thousand program and project managers and project specialists around the world, and has consulted in project management to clients in 14 countries on 4 continents. E-mail: russell_archibald@yahoo.com. Website: www.russarchibald.com.

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