THE FOUR LEADERSHIP ROLES OF THE PROJECT MANAGER
With so much information available on leadership, it is difficult to pick one model or theory that adequately describes the key skills and attributes necessary for successful project management leadership.
Our model of project manager leadership involves a melding of the many disparate theories of leadership into four distinct leadership roles that a project manager will play at different points along the evolution of a project. These four complementary roles involve the project manager as a leader, manager, facilitator, and mentor (see Table 2-1).
These four roles should not viewed as distinct categories of behavior. Rather, they represent four key functions that a project manager is simultaneously discharging at any point during the work day. Even during the same conversation with a team member, a project manager may seamlessly move from one of the four functions to another.
Generally, each project manager has a preference or comfort in adopting one or two of the four roles. As you consider these roles, notice which is most comfortable for you. Then develop a plan to develop the people skills and comfort level required to perform the other roles.
Project Manager as “Leader”
The leadership role involves the projects manager’s ability to define the vision for the project, and then to sell that vision to the team members and other stakeholders. The vision is the “why” of the project; it articulates the mission of the effort and the added value it brings to the organization and the customer. The vision also demonstrates how the team’s end product or service fits into the larger scale of the company’s efforts—the big picture of why effort and resources are being expended.
In crafting a vision for the project, the project manager integrates the perspectives and goals of the customer as well as the perspectives of the team members and other stakeholders. Without actively talking with the customer about the true purpose and creating this personal representation, the project manager may begin the project with only a partial understanding of the scope and deliverables. This can lead to potential problems in terms of scope creep and extensive changes to accommodate the customer’s requirements.
The project manager must then create a personal representation of the true purpose of the project, noting subtle goals and the customer’s definition of added value. If the project manager feels confident that he or she knows the customer’s true needs, the resulting representation will enable the project to begin with motivation and purpose.
When operating in this leadership role of crafting the project vision, the project manager needs to demonstrate the following people skills:
• Ask probing questions that demonstrate an interest in taking initial discussions beyond the general level
• Recognize what the customer is saying and not saying, which can be equally important in defining project objectives and requirements
• Clarify perceptions of the project’s purpose, ensuring that the both the project manager and the customer are working in the same direction.
The next step in the role of leader is for the project manager to begin a dialogue with the team members regarding the project’s purpose. This discussion is not a one-time event to be completed at the project kickoff meeting, nor is it a one-way discussion in which the leader presents the purpose to the group in a formal briefing. Instead, it is highly interactive and ongoing. The project manager strives to encourage team members to define the vision in their own words, believing that a personal definition of project mission:
• Has more meaning for individual team members
• Allows them to become more engaged in the process.
The leader role is also demonstrated at the beginning of the project when the project manager endeavors to establish personal credibility with the team members. Establishing credibility or “walking the talk” involves demonstrating actions and behaviors that are consistent with verbally espoused values.
When a leader’s actions are consistent with his or her spoken values, the leader’s behavior is said to be congruent. Leader congruence is crucial for creating a motivating climate for the team (see Chapter 6 for more on congruent behavior).
The people skills required for leader “congruence” include the ability to:
• Identify behaviors that you can reasonably expect to demonstrate as being consistent with your values
• Refrain from over-promising to deliver on something that may not be possible because of organizational resource limitations or political constraints
• Seek feedback from a mentor, coach, or supportive colleague regarding how congruent your behavior is with your stated values.
Leadership for the project manager also involves an active role as the team’s voice to the outside world. The leader needs to communicate actively with both internal and external stakeholders:
• Supporting and obtaining buy-in to project goals
• Providing updates and progress reports
• Addressing conflict situations in a productive and forthright manner.
In summary, the leader role for the project manager involves answering the question “Why are we doing this project?” by painting a picture of the mission and the added value the completed project will represent.
Project Manager as “Manager”
The manager role, viewed from the perspective of people challenges, involves creating an administrative system with enough structure and discipline to get the job done without having that structure stretch into the realm of excessive bureaucracy.
The creation of this type of administrative system is often easier said than done, with the balance between structure and team member freedom of functioning varying from project to project depending on the mix of the individuals on the team.
The manager function involves creating an infrastructure that allows team members to thrive during periods of uncertainty.
A project is similar to life: We hope we know what is going to happen, but the reality is that we are continually surprised, often in ways that place significant demands on us. Such project unpredictability is reduced if the project leader has created team operating structures that are clear, reasonable, efficient, and not overly bureaucratic.
Examples of team structures where the project manager has successfully fulfilled the role of manager include situations where:
• Team member roles and responsibilities provide a clear source of direction, while still giving each team member opportunities to define his or her own path to complete them. This can be done by using a resource assignment matrix tied to the project’s work breakdown structure that shows specific responsibilities for each team member (e.g., approve, coordinate, review, perform).
• Processes and procedures state clear behavioral and performance expectations as guidelines rather than as strict rules that must be followed without exception.
• Meetings are purposeful and focused, providing opportunities to balance the need to dissent and discuss with the need to decide and seek closure.
The project manager who successfully meets the goals of the manager function discusses these structure-setting requirements with the team, explaining the rationale for what some team members may perceive as excessive structure. In those discussions, it is helpful for the project manager operating as a manager to:
• Talk about what flexibility may be possible
• Consider the individual needs of each team member
• State the preference to complete the project with a minimum of bureaucratic structure.
Personal issues and style will also affect the manner in which the project manager discharges the manager role. Some project managers will have a tendency to create excessive structure (i.e., become too controlling), while others will have a tendency to create too little structure (i.e., adopt a more laissez-faire approach to managing). Both approaches are problematic.
The overcontrolling manager has difficulty prioritizing how best to spend his or her time and often focuses on tasks that may be better handled by others. Although well-intentioned, this project manager strives for excessive structure and order, perhaps reflecting underlying doubt that things will work out. Undercurrents of anxiety and personal worry are common for this type of leader, who is frequently unaware of how his or her behavior affects the attitude and morale of project team members.
Team members working with a micromanaging manager react with feelings such as:
• Frustration, anger, and irritation about being over-structured or over-managed
• Loss of motivation for completing project tasks
• Perception of being undervalued or unappreciated.
If the project manager believes that such behaviors are a risk, then he or she should seek regular feedback from the team regarding perceptions of over-structure and over-control. Ask direct questions since team members tend not to volunteer this type of information.
The laissez-faire manager, conversely, tends to put too little structure in place for the project team, allowing many details or processes to drift. This person may be too trusting of team members to follow through and, as a result, may tend to overlook matters such as compliance with the project management methodology or the timely completion of tasks.
In many cases, a laissez-faire manager is more enamored with creating a vision for the project, as compared with implementing the vision on a tactical level. If a manager errs on the side of creating too little structure for the team, the risks are that:
• Project tasks, compliance, and monitoring and may suffer
• Team members may appear anxious and hesitant about how to proceed, believing that they do not have enough specifics or systems to be successful.
Clearly, the “right” place to be on this continuum is in the middle, where a structure is in place but team members still possess autonomy and flexibility to follow their own paths.
Defining an idealized point on the continuum of over-controlling structure versus laissez-faire is difficult, but indicators of an appropriate balance between these extremes include signs such as:
• Team members report that sufficient procedures are in place for the team to operate in an autonomous manner
• Key work can be tracked and monitored in a setting where team members demonstrate positive attitudes, initiative, and creativity
• Basic reports to stakeholders are prepared without team members complaining about meaningless requirements.
Project Manager as “Facilitator”
Facilitation is one of the most subtle, yet profound roles the project manager can assume. Project facilitation involves the project manager demonstrating behaviors and attitudes that help others get their work done.
Facilitation is often achieved through the art of influencing others. It involves communicating effectively, resolving conflicts, obtaining needed resources, and motivating people, both individually and as a team.
People skills required for the facilitator role include:
• Using clear statements that get to the point
• Asking open-ended questions, such as “What else do you think our team needs to be successful on this project?”
• Being a good listener by trying to recognize the key points of the speaker’s message
• Clarifying the meaning of the speaker’s message by asking if your understanding is correct
• Demonstrating willingness to use assertive behaviors to get the resources your team needs, coupled with a tolerance for not being liked by outside stakeholders.
Facilitation as a management skill can be compared with the role of planning and orchestrating the details for a dinner party.
The host of the party does his or her best to consider the needs of the guests, to obtain the items needed for the event, and to create an atmosphere appropriate for the gathering. As the guests arrive, the host continues facilitating the event by offering choices to the guests and doing what he or she can to create a positive experience.
However, this is where “facilitation” ends. The host cannot make the people have a good time. Facilitation provides them with the resources they need, but the creation of the “fun” part is up to the individuals involved.
The goal in facilitation is to provide team members with choices, options, and a conducive setting, and then trust that the team will create the sought-after outcome. In this role, it is not the project manager’s job to create the solution on his or her own—that is up to the team.
A project manager who is adept at helping team members address and resolve conflict in a productive manner is also demonstrating facilitation skills. So is the manager who anticipates resource needs and proactively obtains needed supplies, materials, technology, and human resources.
As a leadership role, facilitation requires that the project manager not get too involved in the details or substance of the project. Such immersion in the details, while intellectually stimulating for the project manager, can become a way to avoid some of the less pleasant aspects of being the facilitator—such as the need to use assertive behavior to make things happen for the team.
As a people skill, the assertiveness component of the facilitator role can be developed by reading books and attending workshops on assertive behavior.
Project Manager as “Mentor”
Mentoring is the process by which one person (the mentor) assists another person (the mentee), either formally or informally, in various tasks related to professional growth and development.
The mentor role for the project manager is a valuable contribution to team member performance and development, but it is a service that needs to be offered with the utmost care. Some team members do not want to be in a mentoring relationship with their current project manager; they may prefer to receive their mentoring from their functional manager or from another senior project manager located in another part of the organization. Nonetheless, the project manager can accomplish some of the development aspects of mentoring a current team member by offering the mentoring input in a casual and indirect manner that aids the team member’s growth while also addressing current work issues on the project.
Mentoring actions and behaviors may include any of the following people skills, depending on the needs of the individual team member and the current needs of the project:
• Serving as a role model, by which the project leader demonstrates skills, behaviors, and attitudes whose adoption may benefit team members
• Demonstrating a genuine, personal interest in the welfare and professional growth of team members
• Offering suggestions, possibilities, resources, problem-solving approaches, and opportunities to think out loud with team members regarding current or future issues
• Providing feedback that is supportive yet frank and accurate, reinforcing successes while portraying failures as learning opportunities
• Offering motivation directed toward assisting team members in identifying and achieving long-term professional goals.
During the more intense periods of a project, most interactions between the project manager and a team member are focused on real-time issues. A mentoring emphasis during those periods is not appropriate and should wait until work demands have lessened. These quieter times are when the project manager in the mentor role and the team member can debrief each other about recent work; the mentor can then offer formal or informal guidance about how the team member could approach such a situation in the future.
Sometimes a team member will request such feedback from the project manager; other times, he or she will not request this type of feedback but will be receptive if it is offered. Clearly, the project manager needs to develop a knowledge of the personalities of the team members with an eye toward identifying those individuals who might be receptive to mentoring.
In many organizations, a mentoring relationship is best suited to a more formal relationship between a project manager and a person on another project team. Such a relationship often enables both parties to focus more clearly on the developmental needs of the mentee, free of distractions that can arise when both parties are working on the same team.
Mentees often describe the mentoring relationship as a positive one where they can talk in confidence with a professional outside of their project team on matters of professional growth and development. Mentors report positive feelings about the opportunity to give something back to the profession in terms of assisting a junior colleague in moving along the career path.
The leadership challenges for the project manager are more complicated than the challenges facing the functional leader. The project manager faces greater leaderships hurdles in the areas of clarity of organizational structure, consistency of human resources, and motivation of team members.
The leadership roles of the project manager are multifaceted. The project manager must simultaneously serve as leader, manager, facilitator, and mentor.
The leadership role requires that the project manager provide a vision to the team that defines the added value the project will bring to the customer. The manager role helps provide a structure to keep the focus on the customer in terms of performance, time, and cost. The facilitator role involves providing the necessary emotional and logistical support that team members need to complete the project. Finally, the mentor role asks the project manager to artfully assist team members with issues of professional growth, development, and direction.
It is rare that a project manager excels equally in all four of these leadership roles. The project manager needs to be realistic about strengths and weaknesses in the four leadership roles (without being self-critical) and should actively pursue professional development for those aspects of leading, managing, facilitating, or mentoring that need improvement. It is also important that the project manager develop the ability to recognize when a specific role is appropriate and how and when to move from one role to another.
Discussion Questions
A project manager working for an aerospace company near San Diego is placed in charge of a project whose team members are junior-level professionals with little experience working on their own. This presents a problem for the project manager, because the bulk of the work on the project is to be conducted by a virtual team, with most of the team members scattered across the country.
This project manager has managed teams before, but these teams were staffed with senior professionals, each with a history of self-directed performance and all working at the same geographical location. She makes the false assumption that this group can be managed in a laissez-faire style, with her leaving much of the direction up to the team.
As the project evolves, problems surface because the laissez-faire style is not working. This group of junior staff members requires more monitoring and structure than the project manager assumed they would need. This problem stems from their junior status, the virtual nature of the team, and the project encountering production problems that could have been avoided with tighter monitoring by the project manager.
1. How can this project manager now establish a more structured managerial approach?
2. How can this project manager best mentor some of the junior-level team members?
3. How can this project manager ensure that all the team members share the same concept of the project’s objectives and scope?