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Project Managers as Leaders

The biggest failure that I can see – with the limited knowledge we have right now – in FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina was a failure in leadership.

 

Now that a new director has been appointed at FEMA, we’ll see if he has what it takes to succeed.

 

How do we know if someone’s a leader? And do project managers need to be leaders?

 

Someone’s a leader if the people around her/him are willing to do their jobs at 100%. Some of the characteristics of a leader are:

 

  • Able to communicate vision
  • Able to develop strategies to reach that vision
  • Able to develop tactics to support those strategies
  • Able to create passion about that vision

 

Think about leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy. Both of these men had vision. They were both passionate about their visions. And they were able to get other people passionate enough to take action toward achieving those visions.

 

As project managers, we need to have a vision for every project – no matter how large or how small. And we need to communicate that vision to everyone around us. That’s a 360 degree radius.

 

Project managers are great at developing strategies and tactics – those are the tools of our trade. But do we create passion in other people for each of our projects?

 

Write a comment here and tell me how you create passion for your projects. I love to hear what you’re doing.

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