8 Critical Project Management Leadership Skills
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8 Critical Project Management Leadership Skills
Hi, I’m Chance Reichel and I’m a trainer and consultant with Corporate Education Group.
There is no doubt that being both a relatable and successful project manager is challenging. As a project manager, you are responsible for so many different elements during any given project that it can be easy to forget the importance of being a project team leader and motivator.
Brushing up on these eight project management leadership skills can help you become a better project manager.
- Create opportunities where individuals can actively contribute. People tend to feel a greater pride and take more ownership of what they participate in creating. Let go of control and manage the team process.
- Ensure your team members understand how the parts of the project fit together. When they do, they’ll be more committed to making the project successful and understanding project interdependencies.
- Communicate the purpose of the project to your team because people are inspired by what is meaningful to them.
- Ask team members to work from shared information to increase team buy-in. Visual basic tools like the work breakdown structure and project schedule enhance team buy-in and understanding.
- Build the team environment around mutual trust and respect, and work with the team to establish and enforce project ground rules. Also, act like a buffer between project resources. This will enable them to focus on the work at hand and be more efficient.
- Treat each person as an individual with individual needs and approaches to learning, processes and problem solving. Also, remind project stakeholders to respect individual differences. In this type of environment, people will feel valued and project efficiency will increase. Listening to understand is one of the best tools to employ during this process. When you listen to understand, you take the time to fully comprehend what the other party is saying. Don’t try to “win” conversations. Instead, try to understand the concerns and ideas of others.
- Show appreciation for the contributions of each individual on the team and for the team as a whole. Efforts that are not recognized become work instead of passion. When passion is lost, the work becomes routine, which can negatively affect efficiency.
- Empower your team! In theory, the team should consist of subject matter experts. Let the experts do their work, but maintain an expectation for the end product that is understood and shared by all.
