What Does Good Project Leadership Really Look Like?

Project management is inextricably linked with project leadership, but it is not the same thing. You can have a project that is impeccably managed with a complete plan, a correct schedule, clear roles and responsibilities, a comprehensive risk register and adequate reporting. However, in the end it can still fail because people don’t believe in the objectives for which they are working, because the stakeholders are working towards conflicting goals or simply because the team has lost confidence in the project.

Leadership is required in critical moments of difficulty when the project is struggling to stay on course and normal management processes are unable to re-motivate, re-energise or re-vitalise the project

Project management creates the framework within which a project can be delivered but leadership creates the environment within which people are willing and able to carry out the project work.

This is an important distinction for project professionals because projects depend on people. Yet a project manager often doesn’t have direct authority over everyone whose cooperation they need. Team members are likely to report to functional managers but that is less of an issue than stakeholders who are usually more senior than the project manager. Add suppliers into the mix who have their own commercial agendas and you start to see why simply management will rarely be enough.

The project manager cannot rely simply on position or process – they have to influence, persuade, challenge, listen, build trust and create a sense of a common objective. That’s where project management starts to become project leadership.

Project leadership is not another project management process

One reason leadership can become lost in discussions about project management is that it’s tempting to turn it into another set of techniques. As project managers we are used to processes. We know the importance of recording project risks, approving all changes and reporting progress regularly. Leadership, on the other hand, is not well-organised or even logical because it is all about human interaction.

Consider an overdue task as an example. The project schedule will clearly show that it is overdue but a process cannot motivate a team swamped with work to get the task back on track. A risk register might highlight disagreements between stakeholders but it’s a difficult conversation with those stakeholders that is needed to agree a compromise and move forward. It’s these types of good leadership actions that make a difference because all projects need both management and leadership.

Management is about “How?” Leadership is about “Why?”

Project management naturally concentrates on delivery of a successful outcome. It asks essential questions, such as:

• What needs to happen?
• Who is responsible?
• When must it be completed?
• What will it cost?
• What could go wrong?
• Are we on schedule?

Leadership introduces another set of questions:

• Why does this project matter?
• Do people understand what we are trying to achieve?
• Does the team believe the plan is achievable?
• Are people telling us what they really think?
• Are stakeholders genuinely committed?
• What difficult issue are we avoiding?

This difference between management and leadership is clear when problems arise or there is some uncertainty within the project. When everything is proceeding according to plan, competent project management may be enough to deliver what’s needed. But when the plan hits a stumbling block then good leadership becomes the route through to a successful project outcome.

What does good project leadership actually look like?

Very often you will hear good leadership traits being described in an abstract way like being inspirational or charismatic. Those qualities can help, but they are not prerequisites. In projects, leadership is often much more practical.

Creating clarity when there is uncertainty

Project teams need to know what the end-result is even when the precise route is unclear. A good project leader will acknowledge any uncertainty but this requires confidence, not a false sense of certainty.

A good leader acknowledges that they don’t yet have all the answers but will work towards identifying them, which is a much stronger leadership response than pretending to have an answer. People do not necessarily expect leaders to know everything but they do expect them to provide direction.

Creating a purpose people understand

A project plan describes what people need to do but it’s leadership that ensures they understand why they are doing it. That difference affects how the people involved with the project actually behave.

The whole project team, including stakeholders, need to understand the reasons for implementing a project so they can make better decisions when situations change. When a project is not going to plan standard instructions are never adequate so people need to make a judgement call on which approach to take to deliver the desired outcome.

Good project leaders therefore repeatedly connect individual activities with the bigger objective. That is particularly important on long, complex projects where people can easily become absorbed in their own workstream and lose sight of what the project is actually trying to achieve.

Building trust

As a project leader, being consistent, doing what you say you will do, being clear about the reasons behind decisions and always treating everyone fairly are some of the ways you can create an environment of trust on a project.

But trust is a two-way street so the project leader also needs to be able to trust other people. A good way to do this is to establish expectations and accountability but, at the same time, give people autonomy to get on with their jobs. If your project team expect every decision they make to be questioned or every action to be supervised, then they wil be less inclined to exercise their own judgement. Good leadership (or even good management) is not about micromanagement which just weakens a team.

Listening is a leadership skill

A leader has to create an environment in which people are prepared to tell them things they may not want to hear. For example, a team member who believes a deadline is impossible needs to feel able to say so. Or a technical specialist should be able to challenge an assumption on what is actually achievable.

The further information travels upwards through an organisation, the greater the danger that bad news becomes softened. Project leaders need to actively counter that tendency so when someone raises an uncomfortable problem, a leader’s initial response matters. Punishing the messenger teaches only one lesson – everyone else remains silent.

Good leaders make it safe to disagree

Complex projects bring together people with different expertise, priorities and perspectives so disagreement is inevitable and can be valuable. A project team that never disagrees is not a healthy team.

That means good project leadership is not about eliminating conflict but instead about making conflict productive. A good leader can separate disagreement about an idea from disagreement with an individual person. Nevertheless, it’s vital to prevent the loudest or most senior voice from automatically determining the outcome.

A team does not have to agree unanimously with every decision. But once a decision has been properly debated and made, people need to understand it and know what is expected next.

Leadership means having difficult conversations

Some of the clearest demonstrations of leadership occur when a project manager says something that would be easier not to say. That could be, for example, that the project sponsor’s preferred deadline is unrealistic or that a highly valued team member may be causing problems for everyone around them. Maybe a supplier is not delivering as expected or a stakeholder continually changes requirements expecting no consequences.

Processes provide the evidence of such issues and highlight the need for conversations, but those issues can only be resolved by someone prepared to address the conflicts head on. Good project leaders never prevent important issues from being addressed simply from a desire to maintain harmony. They remain focused on the project outcome rather than on personalities.

Leadership is particularly important when things go wrong

Any project manager can appear confident when a project is progressing well but leadership capabilities become much more visible when it isn’t.

In difficult situations, a leader should never look for someone to blame or try to minimise the problem. Instead, they should establish the facts, acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and create a clear route forward. In other words, good leaders remain calm without pretending that problems do not exist.

Just as importantly, they distinguish between accountability and blame. People should be accountable for their decisions and actions, but a culture in which every mistake triggers a hunt for a culprit only encourages people to conceal problems. That is a dangerous environment to create on any project.

Project leaders need the confidence to change their minds

Leadership is sometimes mistakenly associated with certainty and decisiveness. Of course, these matter, but projects always operate in changing environments so a strong leader can make a decision based on the best available evidence and then subsequently change that decision when the evidence changes. That’s often a necessity and, importantly, they should be able to do so without feeling that changing direction undermines their authority.

In many cases, changing a decision based on new information demonstrates considerably stronger leadership than defending a poor decision.

Different situations require different leadership

There is no single leadership style that works for every project, team or situation. What matters is adaptability.

On one project, an experienced, high-performing team may be allowed considerable autonomy and need very little intervention. Whereas, a newly formed team may initially need much clearer direction. In the face of a crisis, you may need to take a more decisive leadership stance than usual. This is quite different from the planning or problem-solving situation where, although the leader may have the expertise to drive the solution, they actually need to step back and allow the specialists to lead the debate. Leadership is about reading a situation and responding in the way that your team needs at that time.

Leading without authority

One of the most distinctive aspects of project leadership is that project managers frequently have to lead people they do not manage. That might include senior executives, departmental heads, specialists, suppliers and colleagues temporarily assigned to the project.

A project manager cannot simply tell a senior stakeholder what to do because the project plan says so. That means influencing skills become essential.

Leading a project effectively means understanding early on what matters to different stakeholders on the project. Building relationships with stakeholders proactively as opposed to retrospectively is important. Effective leaders know when to negotiate, when to compromise and when to escalate an issue to others.

Leading a project as opposed to just managing it is about being able to influence without the use of hierarchical status to get what you need.

Good leaders develop other people

Leadership is not about making yourself indispensable – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Strong project leaders create teams capable of making decisions and solving problems without referring everything upwards. They give people opportunities to take responsibility. They provide feedback. They recognise strengths and identify where training and development is needed. They allow people to stretch themselves while providing support when necessary.

This can sometimes feel uncomfortable for a project manager because delegation means relinquishing a degree of control. But a project in which every meaningful decision has to pass through one individual is fragile. It is also likely to be slow. The aim should rather be to create capability throughout the team rather than concentrating it at the top.

Emotional intelligence matters

Projects naturally create pressure for any number of reasons – deadlines slip, budgets shrink, stakeholders disagree. A leader’s ability to understand their own reactions – and recognise what is happening in other people – can therefore have a direct effect on project performance.

This simply means, for instance, recognising that a stakeholder’s aggressive response may be driven by anxiety about something outside the immediate discussion. Or noticing that a normally vocal team member has stopped contributing. Or understanding when your own frustration is affecting how you speak to people. Emotional intelligence often determines whether you can get people to do what needs to be done.

What poor project leadership looks like

We’ve looked at what good project leadership can look like, but what about recognising poor leadership? That can take many forms but some warning signs are project managers who:

• control every detail because they don’t trust the team
• avoid difficult conversations because they want everyone to like them
• ask for opinions but has already made the decision
• become defensive when challenged
• take credit when things go well but apportion blame when they don’t.

Other warning signs include information being tightly controlled, the same few people dominating every discussion, team members being reluctant to make decisions and stakeholders agreeing publicly but resisting privately. These behaviours matter because they affect the quality of information on which the project is being managed.

Can project leadership be learned?

It’s true some people are better at some aspects of leadership than others. However, good leadership is not a natural talent that people either possess or not. Leadership is a skill that can be developed over time.

Some leaders’ skills are improved by their past experiences, especially when they reflect on them. Difficult negotiations with stakeholders, team conflicts, a decision that didn’t work, difficult projects – all of these help to improve a leader’s skills if they reflect on what happened and what they could have done differently in order to reach a better outcome.

Bespoke training and/or coaching can help develop skills needed by a leader such as communication, negotiation, conflict management, influence and decision-making.

Feedback is perhaps the most important commodity for aspiring leaders as there can be a large gap between how a leader believes they are leading and how they are actually perceived by others. The key is for leaders to be willing to hear the truth and act on it.

Management and leadership: projects need both

The distinction between leadership and management should not become an argument about which is more important because projects need management. Someone has to build and maintain the plan, manage dependencies, monitor costs, control change, understand risks and provide governance information. Leadership is not a substitute for any of that.

Equally, excellent processes cannot compensate indefinitely for poor leadership so the strongest project professionals should be able to move between the two. They manage when the project needs structure, discipline and control. Then lead when people need direction, confidence, challenge or support. Often, they do both simultaneously.

Great project leadership is ultimately about people

Project management provides the mechanisms through which complex work can be organised and controlled. Project leadership provides something different: the human conditions in which that work can succeed.

Here’s what good project leaders do:

• create clarity without pretending to know everything
• build trust without avoiding accountability
• listen to all voices, but are prepared to make decisions
• encourage challenge without allowing disagreement to become destructive
• remain calm under pressure
• confront difficult issues
• adapt when circumstances change

But above all, they recognise that projects are delivered by people.

Of course plans, processes, governance and tools all matter, but when there’s  uncertainty, conflicting interests or the plan goes awry, it’s good leadership that determines what happens next.

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