Project Leadership Skills

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Project Leadership Skills

• Presented
• by
• Felicity Mildon
• (September 19, 2007)

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Some interesting research

• Up to 70 of employees leave their manager, not
  their organisation
• Managers directly influence the levers that
  contribute to employee performance and retention
  by up to 39

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More statistics

• A recent study by Human Synergistics found that
  managers know what to do from a leadership
  perspective, can easily talk about empowerment,
  collaboration, development etc, but dont
  actually do it! They call this the
• KNOWING-DOING GAP

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Complex workforce demographics

• Ageing workforce
• Highly educated
• More diverse
• Impact of technology i.e. new ways of working
• Work/life balance
• Greater flexibility
• More mobile
• Significant skills shortage
• Declining unionism
• Increasing legislation

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Tonights Objectives

• What are the skills and attributes of effective
  project managers/leaders?

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Skills and attributes of effective Managers?

• Over 10,000 studies on what makes an effective
  manager/leader
• Traits based
• Behavioural
• Situational
• No agreement as yet between the studies
• Some disagreement about the terms management
  and leadership

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Leadership and Management
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The Managers Role

• Henry Fayol described 4 management roles
• Planning
• Organising
• Leading
• Controlling

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How realistic is this when organisations have
changed from this..
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to this
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Henry Mintzbergs Managerial Roles

• Interpersonal
• Figurehead
• Leader
• Liaison
• Decisional
• Entrepreneur
• Disturbance Handler
• Resource allocator
• Negotiator

• Informational
• Monitor
• Disseminator
• Spokesperson

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Is this more correct?
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Or this?
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Or even this?
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On a more serious note..

• What do you want from your manager ?

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Some thoughts

• Leader
• Communicator
• Coach
• Mentor
• Co-ordinator
• Helper
• Trainer

• Empowerer
• Delegator
• Co-operator
• Enabler

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The verdict on Australian Managers

• Australian managers rate well when it comes to
  building employee relationships
• - The do not do so well in inspiring and
  motivating employees

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Discussion

• So what are the skills and attributes
  of effective project leaders/managers?

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So over to you?

• What leadership skills do you want to enhance?
• What actions will you take to develop/enhance
  your leadership effectiveness?

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How can you develop these skills?

• Coaching
• Training
• A mentor
• Reading
• Membership of professional association/s

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It requires

• An understanding of your current strengths and
  areas for development
• A willingness to change
• Opportunities to get formal and informal feedback

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Any questions?
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