Over the years I’ve witnessed what I consider to be truly outstanding, motivational and inspirational project leadership.  I’ve also witnessed what I’ve considered to be the polar opposite; project leadership that has left project teams feeling deflated, undervalued and unwanted.  And the difference between the two in my opinion was simply this; the ability of the project manager to lead as opposed to the ability of the project manager to manage.

Those who left their teams feeling deflated and undervalued were project managers trying to wield power rather than to empower.  I noticed these were the people who spent most of their time directing and ‘telling’, not encouraging or ‘selling’. They always knew best.  They seldom asked for advice, they never sought a second opinion and they made and took every decision, no matter how technical or detailed it may be.

And when those decisions proved to be the wrong ones, it was never as a result of them or the choices they‘d made, it was naturally a result of something that someone else had done or rather, had not done! And the really sad thing I witnessed was they would take delight in telling anyone who would listen, what a great job they were doing! And so I implore you, don’t become that project manager!

That project manager is one who ‘studies the stitch’ and then wonders why they didn’t see the pattern.  That project manager is the one who spends too much time on the ‘how’ things need to be done and far too little thinking about the ‘what’ has to be done, ‘why’ it has to be done and the positive difference the project will make and to whom. That project manager has already ‘pigeon holed’ their project team members as to what they think they are capable of, without taking any time, care or attention to find out what the capabilities of their team members actually are.

Of course as a project leader, there will be times when you have to make tough decisions, often quickly and often alone.  But there will also be plenty more times when you can and should ask for advice, seek guidance and turn to others in your team who are better placed than you to decide and it’s not a sign of weakness to do so – it is a sign of strength. Someone once gave me a great piece of advice as an ‘up and coming’ project manager who was – and without realising it – becoming that project manager. “Paul” he growled in their typically no nonsense and rather abrupt communicative style; “If there is one thing about project leadership you need to remember, it is this – either lead the way, show the way or get out of the way.”

“If you keep on making all of the decisions then nothing in your project will ever be decided because nobody will ever buy in. If you don’t take time to know what your team is capable of, then it will only be as good as you allow it to be and what you allow tends to limit rather than empower.” Those words and those lessons have stuck with me for more than thirty years and I’m sure, God willing, they will stay with me for the next thirty.  And there is of course far more to project leadership than these three lessons alone, I hope none-the-less they can stay with you in the years to come to help you when leading your projects.