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Role of the Project Manager: Managing and Leading

October 21, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Leadership, Role of the Project Manager

Role of the Project Manager: Managing and Leading (#12 in the Hut A Quick Guide to Project Management)
By Manjeet Singh

The role of the project manager has often been described as an ambiguous one – chances are you will not have any clear-cut real authority over the people in your project team. There might even be people on your team who are senior to you or have far more project management experience than you. That being said, managing project teams composed of people from different departments, levels of seniority, and cultures is an achievable goal.

A vast body of literature exists on management and leadership styles. It is out of the scope of this book to go into a detailed discussion of this fascinating topic. However, here are three main types of project leadership styles:

  • Directive: you make decisions and set the direction for your team. Such a style works in crisis but discourages participation.
  • Participative: you encourage participation in decision making. Such a style helps in team building but may not be the best when you need to react quickly.
  • Task-oriented: you focus on achieving the project’s objectives by organizing people and people activities.

TIP: A good project leader has the ability to know when to use one or a mix of the above styles. The style that you use should be adapted to the current project situation, people in your project, your organization, the culture/country, and your project’s outcome.

Next in the Hut A Quick Guide to Project Management:

Team Building in Project Management: Ensuring Your Team Works Well

Previously in the Hut A Quick Guide to Project Management:

Project Executing Process - Kick-off Meeting

Manjeet Singh has over 17 years of experience acquired in a wide variety of industries with a focus on project and program management at Software Makers and Global IT Services companies throughout the world. Manjeet has an Executive MBA from the HEC Management School, and is the author of the website www.projectminds.com that provides a free guide to project management, and offers other project management-related resources.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 and is filed under Leadership, Role of the Project Manager. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 people have left comments

[...] Role of the Project Manager: Managing and Leading [...]

Team Building in Project Management: Ensuring Your Team Works Well - PM Hut wrote on October 28, 2008 - 1:30 am | Visit Link

I just started my job as Online Project Manager. I am little confuse about my role. I been told in the interview that i have to manage day-to-day tasks as well as mini projects.

I generally take the requirement, convert it into task. Neither i assign task to resource nor participate in mockup design as it is done by my supervisor. I generally go to programmer everyday morning and ask where are you at. Most of the times they don’t like if i keep asking same things(update of task).
I am just confused whether i am doing right role or not.
Can you please tell me what online project manager should be doing? Can you also explain me how i get more control(assigning to task and participate in to design so that way programmer also feel that i am involved and they start respecting me)?

Thank You,
vsa

VSA wrote on December 4, 2008 - 12:09 am | Visit Link

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