Project Leadership with 'Situational Sensitivity': New Mantra or Just 'Old Wine in New Bottles?'

Jiwat is a seasoned professional with proven skills and varied academic- and industry-based background in project management. Jiwat brings in contemporary skills and knowledge of current trends in PM.

  Governance   Leadership   Knowledge Shelf  

All project leadership is a journey of continuous adjustments and the refinement of behaviors and actions, rather than the mere mastery of a set of skills; regardless of how heavily it is based on best practices. Effective project leadership is critical to the outcome of any project, but it is exercised in many different ways. It has remained one of the most talked about—if not contentious—issues in project management.

Project leadership is as much situational as it is task-oriented. This makes a project leader’s role one of sensitivity, as well as one that copes with the complexity of working within the constraints of time, budget, uncertainties, and customer expectations. There is no single way to benchmark the effectiveness of a project leader because his or her effectiveness is relative to the demands of the situation. With every project being effectively different, it means leadership in projects is about adaptation and being situationally sensitive.

Situational sensitivity is not an entirely a new concept. British-born management behaviorist William James Reddin (Wikipedia, n.d.) was one of the first authors who wrote about it.

Effective situational sensitivity should be a key trait of leadership. Simply put, it is an understanding of the need—for example, in terms of style, quality, level of involvement, foresight—for leadership …

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