Set the Example: Your Team's Positive Attitude Starts With You

  PM Network  

As a project manager, you must not forget you work with human beings. Most people want to be needed and required by others. And you can’t expect team members or stakeholders to treat you with love and respect if you don’t love and respect yourself.

I was once assigned as a project manager for a multinational training project leading 15 people from different European countries—Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Russia, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. At the beginning of the project, we had a two-day face-to-face session with the whole team to explain the project mission, scope and objectives as well as the initial project plan. After that, I organized a weekly teleconference to follow up on implementation, but I still needed to talk to each team member at least once per week.

My initial purpose was to bring the project under control and I worked long hours at the beginning. That situation caused me stress and hurt my performance. Then it affected my people. I contacted them too late in the evening too many times during the week. I was not respecting myself or my people—and it was causing an adverse result. I was not leading by example.

It took some time, but I was finally able to convince myself that my attitude was threatening the success of the project, and thus the business. My solution was to respect the schedule. Once my team was …

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