Project Management

A project manager may not be necessarily a project leader. Both leaders and managers are professionals who are required to conduct planning, execution, and implementation of a project. Both managers and leaders are in charge of a project team. However, they defer in how they carry out their roles. This paper discusses factors that set apart a leader from just a Project Managers.

Introduction

There is a difference between the project leader and a project manager. A project manager is a person responsible for coordinating and directing and resources.  Project managers have the responsibilities to understand and observe their impact on the project as change agents. Often, a project leadership is so focused on the day-to-day activities of carrying out their project objectives that the impact on the business is not readily apparent.  On the other hand, a project leader is an individual who genuinely leads people in the project. Leaders have a vision and are able to get people signed in to the vision and engaged. It means that in one project manager can also be a project leader. Managers focus on plans, tactics, and budgeting by organizing and obtaining resources, exerting control over situations; and solving problems while leaders focus on the strategic aspect by setting direction, aligning resources; and empowering and inspiring.

Leadership versus project management

Project management and leadership skills inherently share some similar characteristics. They are inherent qualities inexorably linked to a manager or a leader. Whereas leaders serve to inspire and motivate, manager exists to plan, organize and coordinate.  A manager is responsible for communicating organization’s rules and philosophies and ensuring that individuals abide by them. For managers, relationships that exist with employees are influenced by a hierarchical management system.

Project Managers are responsible for maintaining the day to day operations of the organization in order for the cogs of operations remain well-oiled. Managers are often more focused on the bottom line and can base their decisions on calculations. Good project managers serve to enforce the execution of project requirements. In contrast, leaders focus on interpersonal relationships. Project leaders base their decisions on reports and assess the entire project situation to determine most appropriate strategies. A project leader will also be willing to ignore the bottom line and focus on the projects long-range growth perspective. A project leader is a fearless innovator who takes high risks in search of high rewards and challenges the status quo (Howell et al., 2004).

A key characteristic of a manager is that their authority emanates from the nature of their role. They focus on routine tasks, ensure work gets done, ensure work gets done and manage the activities of others. Their focus is on tactical activities and is likely to have a more directive and controlling approach. Being tactical is not always a negative approach as the skill set is greatly needed for a project particularly in a fast paced environment. The ability to organize people to complete tasks is a great asset.

To be a project leader, it is important to be more strategically focused instead of directing through tasks, leaders inspire, motivate followers to drive themselves. Leaders are adept in the use of Emotional Intelligence and employ it so as to attain the best.While project managers attain their authority based on their role, the authorities of leaders are innate in their approach. Effective leadership skills are not easy to learn given that they are more behavioral in nature compared to the skills needed for managers. Leaders employ a wide range of soft skills that, if unknown, these skills can be very difficult to master (Cleland & Ireland, 2006). Leaders are also significantly focused on change. They recognize that continuous improvement can be attained in followers and their activities can be a substantial step towards continued improvement.

Project managers manage the project and do not necessarily lead it. This means that project managers are very rational and task-oriented. They largely focus on processes and events such as allocating resources, calculating effort, reporting progress and estimating duration. The way they manage the project team is one based on authority. The management approach has been regarded as a “push” approach as they generally tell people what to do. Leadership is regarded as a “pull” approach. Project leadership is quite different as it is more people focused.

Leaders don’t just tell followers what to do rather motivate and inspire them by appealing to them at an individual level to ensure achievement of the overall vision. Leaders are more inspirational and visionary and do not an emphasis on skill-centric approaches to completing tasks. Another perspective of looking at the difference between project management and leadership is that project management is very finite and definite (Clarke, 2009). L. There is a right, and a wrong way to follow, and the project manager uphold that. By contrast, leadership is much more open. Project leaders empower people, ask questions, and listen to people rather than just dictating what is expected of them.

Conclusion

Both project leaders and managers defer in skills, training, experience and other factors. Leaders have a vision and are able to get people signed in to the vision and engaged. Project managers manage the project and do not necessarily lead it. This means that project managers are very rational and task-oriented.  A project manager can also be a project leader.

References

Clarke, P. A. (2009). Leadership, beyond project management. Industrial and Commercial Training, 41(4), 187-194.

Cleland, D. L., & Ireland, L. R. (2006). Project management. McGraw-Hill Professional.

Howell, G., Macomber, H., Koskela, L., & Draper, J. (2004, August). Leadership and project management: time for a shift from Fayol to Flores. In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC-12) (pp. 22-29).

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for custom nursing papers.