8/2/2019 Leadership Tips for Promoting Project Success

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Leadership Tips for Promoting Project SuccessAbraham Lincoln said, Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more

important than any one thing.By Neal Whitten, PMP

I have collected project management related tips many learned too slowly and too painfully.

These tips can offer pause for thought and help promote job performance effectiveness.Adopting one can benefit your project; adopting many can benefit your career.

Its not about the ability of those around you to lead; its about your ability to lead, inspite of what is happening around you.

Mind your own business first. Behave as if you own the business and your business isdefined by your domain of responsibility. This not only serves to strengthen your behaviour

and effectiveness, but, if everyone behaved similarly, your company would greatly benefitas well.

Define your roles and responsibilities and obtain agreement from your boss. You are farmore likely to rise to expectations when those expectations are clearly defined. We achieve

according to that which we are measured.

Treat all project members equally. Whether they are clients, vendors, contractors orcompany employees, a project suffers when preferential treatment is given to any group orperson. A projects success is dependent upon the success of each and every projectmember.

Boldness! You cannot be a consistently effective leader if you dont have it. The personwho consistently displays bold behaviour will far out-perform the person with similarknowledge and experience who does not. Bold behaviour includes doing what is necessary,

within legal and ethical parameters, to accomplish your job.

Become a benevolent dictator. Micromanaging, consensus management and democraticrule all can be highly ineffective leadership styles in a business or project. A benevolentdictator leads, first, by actively soliciting information and opinions from team members and

others, second, by listening, and third, by demonstrating the leadership, courage andboldness to personally make the right decision, and standing accountable for that decision.

Practice the Golden Rule. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is thebest time-tested behaviour to adopt while performing on projects.

Perform post-project reviews and ensure that resulting lessons are applied to new projects.Lessons cannot be considered learned until they have been appropriately adopted.

Seek out a mentor. There is no better way to learn than by having a mentor who has beenthere, done that, messed up and learned from the experiences. A mentors advice canpositively impact your career and help protect your projects.

Ask for help or become part of the problem. Asking for and obtaining help is a sign ofprofessional maturity, not weakness. It sends the signal that you take pride in your workand care about the success of the project.

For consistent success, focus on your top three priorities each day rather than your bottom30. The top problems of a project are the areas that can cause the most harm. They must

be effectively dealt with according to the urgency they require.

Inspect what you expect. Dont trust that things are progressing smoothly or will workout okay on they own. Plan it, measure it and, if necessary, mitigate it.

Dont delay or avoid escalating issues that are at an apparent impasse; escalations are ahealthy and essential part of business. If you and another project member are unable to

see eye-to eye, then after an earnest attempt to negotiate a resolution without success,you must call on higher levels of project leadership for help.

The No. 1 reason why leaders fail: being too soft! If you are too soft, your stakeholders willnot learn effective behaviour, nor will they respect you. Projects fail because their leaders

fail.

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