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What’s Your Project Management Leadership Style?
Last June, a colleague of mine wrote about tools of the trade for project managers. Her tips were very helpful and the article made an impact on me because my role at ABR is multi-faceted, not solely project management. Working for a small business, it’s not unusual to have multiple job functions. In addition to managing client projects, I am responsible for sales and business development and I sometimes facilitate training workshops. So, I’m constantly weaving in and out of different roles on any given day.
Performing multiple job roles requires the ability to adapt one’s style and use different skill sets regularly. The ability to do this is especially essential for project managers—their adaptability and flexibility are critical to the success of every project and project team. For instance, it’s often a difficult balance between a PM’s intended project plan and the realities that end up occurring. Of course, when we put project plans together, we have every intention of them coming to fruition! But plans often change throughout a project lifecycle, and it’s helpful to be flexible.
Therefore, when I’m putting together a project schedule with milestones and dates, I often include input from my resources. It’s important to me that they know I care about their lives, workload, schedule, and job satisfaction. While I let them know what the client needs and wants, I collaboratively work with my resources to come up with a plan for providing our deliverables on time. I always have estimated timeframes in mind for the milestones, but sometimes a task will actually take less (or more) time than I originally thought. Thus, I find that being collaborative and flexible with my resources is one of our project success factors.
Project management isn’t just about managing a project—it’s about managing people (your team and your client), expectations, processes, breakdowns (unfortunately these happen!), time, budgets, contracts, scope, etc. And while we’re managing all of these things, hopefully we’re not falling into micromanaging. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the details that we lose sight of the main goal that we’re trying to accomplish. As project managers, we’re not just “managers”; we’re leaders. Our clients expect us to lead the delivery of a solution or product they’ve purchased from us, and our project team needs and wants a good leader to navigate the road trip to our destination. While solid project management skills, experience, and even technical knowledge are components of a successful project, so are good leadership skills.
What’s your project management leadership style?
This entry was posted in Blog and tagged business tips, deliverables, leadership skills, multiple job roles, project management, project manager, project plan, project planning, time management
About the author
Laura Mattis
“I get the most satisfaction from helping others, making a difference in their jobs, careers, and lives.” Experience: More than 10 years in sales, training, and management roles
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