Project Management

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What type of leadership style needs to be adopted in project management?

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Frank Leslie Pinto Senior Project Manager| Manipal Technologies Limited Mangalore, Karnataka, India
Project manager has to manage the project as well as guide and mentor the project team. What leadership style is best suited for Project Managers.?
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Frank -

Situational leadership (i.e. pick the right stance for the right situation) with an emphasis on being a servant leader.

Kiron
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Adrian Carlogea Australia
Probably most PMs have no formal authority over the project team members and as such the PM can't give orders to the team members and can't use coercive methods with them.

If you ask me when you have no formal authority you can't be a real leader but many people don't agree with this statement. I think the PM must adapt the way he works to this situation and should avoid trying to use a command and control approach as this would not work in the absence of formal authority.

I think the mentality should be that of a facilitator equivalent with a Scrum Master from Scrum, even if the project is not Agile.

Some say that a more authoritarian leadership style yields better results but most PMs don't have the means to enforce this.
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Drew Craig Sr. Agile & Product Coach| Vanguard Philadelphia, Pa, United States
Situational as Kiron notes. One size does not fit all.
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Eric Simms Senior Program Manager Baltimore, Maryland, United States
The 'situation' takes into account many factors, such as the industry in which you're working, the organizational culture, the number of stakeholders, whether the project is internal to a company or involves partnerships with other companies - just to name a few.
It might be better to just ask yourself "How must I act to accomplish this project?", and act accordingly.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Project Manager is a manager not a leader. There is a lot a misunderstanding outside there. Just in case you have to perform both roles then your leadership style could be or not could be in line with the organization leadership style. Is up to you if you decide the challenge.
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Nick Rusch Ca, United States
This is such a great question. I've mentored a number of young PM's and almost all of them struggle initially with establishing their own leadership styles. As noted by previous member posts leadership styles are unique to the project, the team AND you. If you've never lead before the biggest challenge you will have is figuring out what leadership style best fits your personality. Very rarely can you adopt a leadership style and be 100% successful. You'll need to 'try on' different ways of leading and see what works. If you have a mentor they can help accelerate this process by providing feedback and recommendations. The style of leadership that you exhibit will be a blend of your personality - what you are comfortable with - and what works with the team you are leading. Leading a group of agile software developers is very different than leading a team of technicians installing networks. How you relate to them requires an understanding of yourself and who you are leading.

Definitely take Kiron's advice and check out servant based leadership. It's not necessarily a style, but more of how a leader approaches leadership and his/her team. See Robert K. Greenleaf and https://www.greenleaf.org/
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1 reply by Frank Leslie Pinto
Feb 19, 2019 9:18 PM
Frank Leslie Pinto
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Thank you Nick for the helping me to understand that it's situational and unique to project and team I work with.
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Frank Leslie Pinto Senior Project Manager| Manipal Technologies Limited Mangalore, Karnataka, India
Feb 09, 2019 5:19 PM
Replying to Nick Rusch
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This is such a great question. I've mentored a number of young PM's and almost all of them struggle initially with establishing their own leadership styles. As noted by previous member posts leadership styles are unique to the project, the team AND you. If you've never lead before the biggest challenge you will have is figuring out what leadership style best fits your personality. Very rarely can you adopt a leadership style and be 100% successful. You'll need to 'try on' different ways of leading and see what works. If you have a mentor they can help accelerate this process by providing feedback and recommendations. The style of leadership that you exhibit will be a blend of your personality - what you are comfortable with - and what works with the team you are leading. Leading a group of agile software developers is very different than leading a team of technicians installing networks. How you relate to them requires an understanding of yourself and who you are leading.

Definitely take Kiron's advice and check out servant based leadership. It's not necessarily a style, but more of how a leader approaches leadership and his/her team. See Robert K. Greenleaf and https://www.greenleaf.org/
Thank you Nick for the helping me to understand that it's situational and unique to project and team I work with.

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