Beyond a PM Mechanic

  Career Development   Manufacturing   New Practitioners   ProjectsAtWork  

Project managers become project leaders when they go beyond the technical mechanics of assignments and actively focus on the link between execution and strategy. Interpreting, anticipating and leveraging are among six essential business skills that you can continuously develop to realize your full leadership potential.

You are a PMP with some experience under your belt. Maybe you’ve even led a major project and applied some general leadership skills to your assignments. But something tells you there is more out there than just the mechanics of your job. You have ideas worth spreading that require a certain set of skills you have yet to master.

Do you want to move beyond the technical innerworkings of your profession to be able to see, understand and innovate within the bigger picture? The key to becoming an advanced leader lies within the link between business strategy and its execution — to go from being just a PM mechanic to the engine designer.

Here are six essential skills that you should be always be working to develop and improve in order to realize your full leadership potential.

1. Managing Alignment — Everything you do needs to be aligned to your organizational culture, strategy, structure and internal politics. Managing alignment requires understanding how to move your project, team, products and organization in concert and knowing that not everything …

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