Learning Solutions for Increased Project Performance

The Missing Link: Providing Project Leadership Skills to Project Managers

A medical device company was challenged because their project managers struggled with leading teams and gaining cross-functional commitment for projects. The technical expertise of the project managers was fantastic: most had at least masters’ degrees in Engineering or related field, and several were PMPs. Yet, the project teams often had difficulties coming together during planning and committing to a joint approach and schedule. During execution, commitments were often not met because people were being pulled in too many other directions. The project managers didn’t know how to hold people accountable because, very often, the team members’ functional managers were part of the problem.

After an initial assessment of the situation, our consultants helped the organization clarify cross-functional expectations and management level by bringing the senior functional managers together to agree on the project roles, authority and rules of engagement. We followed this with a focused Project Leadership workshop for the project managers, who were well-versed in project management topics but had very little training on team leadership, communications, influencing and holding people accountable (managing performance in a matrix).

By introducing the Emotional Intelligence Framework and related leadership styles, the project managers also had an opportunity to discover their own strengths as leaders, and define additional development goals for increasing their leadership effectiveness. The project managers were given pragmatic tools for kicking off their cross-functional teams, setting up the right team and stakeholder management processes, and assessing their team’s effectiveness.

This process increased the project managers’ confidence as leaders, while also ensuring that the right management commitment to the project management role existed. This enabled a greater partnership with the functional managers and the project managers, and provided an increased level of commitment and ownership for deliverables at the team level.