4 Predictions on the Future of Leadership

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Leadership  

What’s leadership in project environments going to look like five, 10 or more years from now? None of us know, but here are my ideas, hopefully based on some kind of logic.

1. Autonomy…and perhaps loneliness
It seems inevitable that project teams will continue to become more empowered, being given greater autonomy to operate as self-contained work units. Organizations are recognizing the advantages of having decision making close to the work—and in a world that continues to prioritize speed to solution, this model is likely to continue. It simply takes too long to have all decisions escalated for review and approval.

At the same time, we are going to see an increasing number of executives in organizations who have worked in autonomous, empowered teams. They are more likely to recognize the advantages, and less likely to worry about the loss of control.

This will inevitably establish project managers as even more influential leaders. Not only will they be leading their teams to deliver solutions, they will be critical players in the business decision-making that will determine how those solutions contribute to the organizational goals and objectives.

They won’t be alone in that process. The stakeholders will work with them, but it will still be a more significant role—one that will give them greater authority than they have today.

…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.