Term Paper on "Project Management Leadership"

Term Paper 10 pages (3121 words) Sources: 9 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Leadership: Being an Effective Project Manager

The many requirements placed on project managers require a unique skill set, all underscored by the ability to lead project teams and continually get results from diverse groups of professionals. Project managers are highly skilled in the managing of often conflicting tasks, alleviating resource constraints, all aimed at ensuring the objectives of a project are fulfilled. The synchronizing of efforts across an organization is the catalyst by which project manager define their role, and while it is not required for them to have leadership attributes, if they do, their job and its daily accomplishments are much more significant. If a project manager can emerge as a leader, their effectiveness will increase substantially from one project to the next. The intent of this analysis is to present the differences between leadership and management and examine the attributes of high performing project managers who have attained leadership in their organizations.

Defining the Differences between Leadership and Management

The differences between leadership and management are dramatically different. The consensus of many leadership and management researchers and theorists is that each requires significantly different skill sets to do well, and that leadership is centered on invoking and sustaining worker commitment, even in times of uncertainty. Bennis (1999), one of the world's leading experts in leadership, has often remarked that management and leadership have many similarities, yet the most differentiating element he has seen is the character of the leader. Winston and Patterson (2006) have provided this definition of leadership as a result of their extensive research in the area:

leader is one or more people who selects, equips, trains, and influences one or more follower(s) who have diverse gifts, abilities, and skills and focuses the follower(s) to the organization's mission and objectives causing the follower(s) to willingly and enthusiastically expend spiritual, emotional, and physical energy in a concerted coordinated effort to achieve the organizational mission and objectives. The leader achieves this influence by humbly conveying a prophetic vision of the future in clear terms that resonates with the follower(s) beliefs and values in such a way that the follower(s) can understand and interpret the future into present-time action steps."

Other theorists including Dansey-Smith (2004) have succinctly remarked that leadership is more about who you are and management is about what you do. Dansey-Smith has made the delineations of management and leadership clear by stating that all leaders need to be first good managers. In her observations she states that management is more of a concerned with the doing of tasks, short-term orientations and operations, highly transactional and task-driven, and most known for a high level of monitoring and controlling activity. All these attributes lead to management being more focused on supervising than collaborating or developing subordinates. In contrast, the role of the leader is more focused on long-term strategies with an emphasis on transformational growth through building alliances and relationships. Also central to leadership is the growth of creativity and innovation, and finally the developmental role of excellent leaders is clearly seen in the legacy of subordinates they have who grow into their own leadership roles.

In contrast the traditionally defined role of managers of planning, organizing, leading and controlling that is promulgated in literally hundreds of textbooks and articles is further substantiated by the research of Nebeker and Tatum (2002) who further state that the role of manager is to delve into the underlying ecosystems needed to fulfill these four separate functional areas. Kotterman (2006) has stated that each of these respective managerial steps have gained higher levels of complexity by significant orders of magnitude. As a result, he concludes, the role of a manager in measuring processes and product characteristics is eclipsing the role of the leader. Given the complexities in which many managers have to operate, their skill set is pushed daily into testing their leadership abilities. It is too simplistic to say managers just manage processes, people and products to a goal while leaders inspire. The differences are more complex and requiring a greater level of taxonomies, or frameworks to define the differences in each role. From the research reviewed for this paper it appears that approaches to define leadership vs. managers on trait theories alone are inconclusive.

What many organizations do however is have subordinates complete surveys where they specifically rate their superior's managerial and leadership qualities relative to an ideal score. Using factor and discriminant analysis techniques to find significant clustering of attitudes and perceptions, researchers are finding that typically subordinates will judge their superiors' managerial vs. leadership ability judged from the handling of only a few of the many decisions made during a period of time. Additionally, ratings may result from just one or more salient situations, the supervisor's outward behavior, his or her personality traits, or some uniquely subjective combination according to Lord (2000). Further, the research shows that managing and leading often overlap and conflict in these statistical analyses of attitudinal variables. As a result, the methodologies used for attempting to quantify the differences between managers and leaders are often not extrapolated to broader organizational applications. As Gordon and Yukl (2004) have often stated there is a lack of research rigor on the part of practitioners, a lack of empirical rigor on the part of academics, and differences in the research goals, all of which lead to the multiple taxonomies mentioned earlier in this paper. Gordon and Yukl (2004) also mention that in defining the role of manager vs. leader, one cannot completely exist without the other. While psychographic research of subordinates yields the tendency on their part to create quick judgments of a manager's character, integrity, honesty and skill set, those with leadership-like qualities are seen as much more able to define a vision that makes sense for their organizations. This dichotomy of time horizons, span of control, and ability to motivate through a compelling vision over just using their legitimate power is what differentiates leaders from managers, and to the extent they inspire vs. demand is to the extent to which they accomplish their goals.

Essential Attributes for Project Management Leaders

Based on the research regarding leadership a set of attributes emerge that are essential for project managers to be leaders. First and foremost, the need to be able to communicate and empathize with others is critical for a success in project management. This skill of communication needs to include verbal, written, and during any project managers' career, also expands into public speaking as well. The ability to communicate is by far the most valuable, and essential skill for a project manager. Included in this attribute is the ability to be persuasive and empathetic as well. This aligns with the research from Bennis (1999) and Winston and Patterson (2006) which illustrate how critical it is for leaders to be transparent and trustworthy, in addition to being consistent in their judgment and actions.

Second, a sense of urgency is critical, in conjunction with the ability to stay focused for extended periods of time on a single task until it is completed. Too often, project managers have a strong sense of urgency yet don't have the ability to stay focused long enough to complete the most critical tasks. Project managers are often looked to as the critical links to senior management on highly complex, and critically important projects and if they are to be effective leaders, they need to have a sense of urgency regarding strategically important aspects of a project, and this may or may not include an item on a critical path. As a result, project managers who attained leadership levels have the ability to harness a strong sense of urgency while at the same time selectively focusing both their own attention, and the attention, resources, and support of others for intense, short periods of time to complete complex tasks that require tight coordination and synchronization of activities.

Third, the project managers who are effective leaders have a strong sense of what is strategic vs. tactical both in their own projects, and also in the broader culture of their organizations. This is a skill that the higher performing leaders who are project managers develop over time. Project managers who are effective leaders are able to intermediate the cultural biases and many cases, limitations of their companies to find the strategic importance and contribution of their projects. Often project managers who don't have this unique skill of sensing the cultural framework of their projects and their resulting strategic importance of their projects get frustrated with how slowly the cultures of the companies they work for change. It is common for many corporations' cultures to embrace an element of complacency, and as a result make the job of the project manager all the more difficult. Keeping these cultural limitations in check while completing a project is what makes project managers who have leadership skills so valuable.

Fourth, successful project management leaders also have a very strong sense of ownership for the projects they are managing, and a personal investment… READ MORE

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