A Leadership Profile of American Project Managers.
Title: A leadership profile of American project managers.
By: Zimmerer, Thomas W., Yasin, Mahmoud M., Project Management Journal, 87569728, Mar1998, Vol. 29, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper reports the results of a survey of senior project managers. The results clearly and unequivocally identify positive success and negative leadership as the cause of project failure. The characteristics of leadership are further identified, as well as the projectmanagement tools that are most useful and most often used. It can be concluded that organizational effectiveness requires projectmanagers to combine their technical competency with the ability to develop and display leadership.
Keywords: leadership; organizational effectiveness; project management tools; effective project management
Although the needs and demands of clients have always been the highest priority for any project manager, increasing global competition, ever heightening client expectations, and the magnitude of the projects impact on a firm 's bottom line has begun to place greater emphasis on the skills necessary to successfully lead today 's project teams. Historically, strong technical skills and knowledge of the industry would have been the key selection criteria. It was, in many cases, simply assumed that men and women who possessed these qualities would lead the project to a successful completion.
Today 's complex project environments require even greater skills at leadership than ever before. "Cookie-cutter" formula-based management was probably never correct, but in today 's environment it will inevitably lead to disaster. Performance expectations for quality, cost effectiveness, timely delivery, and a host of other client measures are ratcheted-up a notch each year. In the highly competitive arena in which most projects operate, be they external or internal, the requirement to produce results that exceed client expectations has become the norm. As one respondent shared, "I have not worked on
By: Zimmerer, Thomas W., Yasin, Mahmoud M., Project Management Journal, 87569728, Mar1998, Vol. 29, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper reports the results of a survey of senior project managers. The results clearly and unequivocally identify positive success and negative leadership as the cause of project failure. The characteristics of leadership are further identified, as well as the projectmanagement tools that are most useful and most often used. It can be concluded that organizational effectiveness requires projectmanagers to combine their technical competency with the ability to develop and display leadership.
Keywords: leadership; organizational effectiveness; project management tools; effective project management
Although the needs and demands of clients have always been the highest priority for any project manager, increasing global competition, ever heightening client expectations, and the magnitude of the projects impact on a firm 's bottom line has begun to place greater emphasis on the skills necessary to successfully lead today 's project teams. Historically, strong technical skills and knowledge of the industry would have been the key selection criteria. It was, in many cases, simply assumed that men and women who possessed these qualities would lead the project to a successful completion.
Today 's complex project environments require even greater skills at leadership than ever before. "Cookie-cutter" formula-based management was probably never correct, but in today 's environment it will inevitably lead to disaster. Performance expectations for quality, cost effectiveness, timely delivery, and a host of other client measures are ratcheted-up a notch each year. In the highly competitive arena in which most projects operate, be they external or internal, the requirement to produce results that exceed client expectations has become the norm. As one respondent shared, "I have not worked on
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