A Plan to Navigate Your Leader-Ship

George Freeman, PMP, is a seasoned IT project manager and leader who has worked in the software industry for nearly four decades, including over 25 years of project management. He has significant experience and expertise in enterprise information systems, data, and business architectures, and is an advocate for “business and technical architectural awareness” among all project team members. Mr. Freeman has international and remote team experience, and has a passion for meta-modeling, domain-driven design, and “all things architecture.”

  Career Development   Leadership  

The International Maritime Organization states that the captain of a vessel has the responsibility to appraise, plan, execute and monitor the voyage plan. These process groups will seem familiar to project management practitioners, but their relevancy in this article pertains to creating a leadership navigation plan. 

A leadership navigation plan is central to the notion that strategic project leaders need to have a purposeful, considered approach to the execution and results-monitoring of their leadership practice. You could say that it’s an internally managed adaptive project that one follows with full awareness and choice. Stated differently, it’s the opposite of being on leadership-autopilot.

All of us have room for improvement when it comes to leadership. If you have been in the profession any length of time, you should have a good idea of your strengths and weaknesses as a leader—after all, project managers are feedback magnets. Although you may not agree with the assessments given, they almost always provide value for our growth—and the foundation for a plan to improve.

It’s essential to understand that this leadership plan is project-specific, as all projects are different and require adaptations to style and approach. Having a strategic leadership strategy is also vital, but growth comes from experience, hence the need …

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