Project Managers Need Leadership Skills

Yes, if you are a project manager you really need leadership skills! Today’s project managers must have leadership skills in order to effectively perform their roles in the organisation and stand out from the crowd. Something must make you distinct from the others, especially if you are currently job searching or worried about your job security given the current economy.

While this has certainly always been the case; it is even more important today in an economy where project managers (PMs) are being asked to do more with less, educed budgets for their projects, fewer resources available to work on the projects, and reduced timelines to get the products/services to market, in order to ensure their organisations remain competitive in a global economy.

Many project managers have strong technical skills, but are sometimes lacking in the critical soft skills necessary to be truly effective.

The Responsibilities of a Project Manager

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to discuss the main responsibilities of a project manager. These three main responsibilities are planning, organizing, and controlling. Performing these responsibilities requires many skills. Some of these necessary skills will be outlined.

Planning

The planning function includes defining the project objective and developing a plan to accomplish the objective. The project manager should work with the project sponsor in order to define the specific objective of the project. Working with the sponsor is beneficial in many ways. For example, the sponsor is the person responsible for the resultant project and thus has a stake in the success of the project. Therefore, the sponsor should be very helpful in defining the project objective. In addition, “sponsors often can help secure interdepartmental cooperation and influence contractors and suppliers” (Davies, p. 83). This can be helpful throughout the life of the project.

The project manager must also develop a plan to accomplish the objective. The project manager should include project team members in this phase. Including members of the project team in the plan development phase “ensures a more comprehensive plan than he or she could develop alone (and) gains the commitment of the team to achieve the plan” (Gido & Clements, p. 292).