Project Leadership - Third Sector Project Management Forum - September 2016

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© 2016 www.businessevolution.co All rights reserved. Helping organizations improve performance
14 September 2016
Sarah Coleman
Director, Business Evolution Ltd
Fellow and former NED, Association for Project Management
Chartered Fellow, Chartered Management Institute
Project Leadership

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• Why project managers need leadership
capabilities
• Project Leader’s Eight Lookings: how to
ensure you’re focused on what’s important
• Traditional and new views helping to
shape project leadership
• Organizational culture and why this is
important to you and your project
• Planning your career: moving from
“managing” to ”leading”.

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Early career:
 software developer & business analyst
 working in local government and private
sector
Current:
 Consultant, educator, author, facilitator,
coach, mentor
 Shaping, designing, planning and
delivering business critical initiatives and
change
 Across industry sectors in the UK and
internationally
 Fellow and former NED, Association for
Project Management
 Chartered Fellow, Chartered Management
Institute
 Visiting Fellow at University of Lincoln
 Designing and delivering learning and
development programmes
 Guest speaker at conferences, seminars &
business schools.

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Project leadership: why should I be interested?
• Increasing “projectification” of
organizations
• Part of skill set underpinning project
success
• New reality: moving away from project
planning and control tools as the keys to
success, and towards the management and
leadership of people and their performance
• Leaders vs leadership: providing leadership
capability is not just left to ‘leaders’
• Every project, programme and portfolio
manager needs elements of leadership
capability to be effective
• A strategic issue for businesses and
government.

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Leading vs Managing
“Management is efficiency in climbing the
ladder of success;
leadership determines whether the ladder is
leaning against the right wall.”
Stephen R. Covey

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born to lead?

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From To
From communication planning
To expert engagement of disparate
stakeholder groups
From delivering outputs and
outcomes
To delivering value: explicit (for example,
defined benefits) and implicit (for example,
enhanced relationships, trust)
From focusing on time, cost and
quality as the definitive success
criteria
To identifying the range of “hard” and “soft”
success criteria, recognizing the life-time value
From focusing on the control of
change
To actively seeking ways of improving value by
identifying opportunities and actively
advocating their acceptance
From viewing projects as stand-
alone entities and trying to manage
as such
To understanding: their context within the
organization, its vision and strategy; the
complex relationships that exist with internal
and external stakeholders; different ideas of
“success”; varied supply chain providing input
From rigorously applying
standardised P3M (project,
programme and portfolio
management) approaches
To applying in a flexible and agile way to deal
with an increasingly fast moving world where
customer requirements are expected to
change
From working in static hierarchical
organizations
To delivering change continuously in dynamic
and innovative organizational frameworks
From being a master of process
To a reflective practitioner with the capabilities
and emotional intelligence to learn and apply
what is most appropriate from the arsenal of
materials available.
Part 1: Project leadership and the project leader. The concept of leadership
How research, models, techniques and ideas about mainstream organizational leadership are helping
to shape current thoughts about effective project leadership. Focus away from a technical skill base
to focus more on people and results
The capabilities of the
future project leader
Questions:
1.What’s happening in the Third Sector
that is making project leadership capability
more important?
2.How many of these capabilities do you
have? How can you close the gap?
3.What capabilities do you believe are
most important?
4.Are there any missing? What are they?
How are they important?

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Eight Lookings overview
Looking outwards – The client
Managing the client, end user and external
stakeholders (including suppliers and
subcontractors) to ensure the project meets
their expectations.
Looking upwards – The Executive Board
Managing your governance team to achieve
organisational commitment and engagement.Wiring into
stakeholders
Looking externally – The client’s vision
Understanding and aligning to the vision and
strategy for the client and their stakeholders.
Looking internally – The organisation’s vision
Understanding and aligning to the vision and
strategy for the organisation and its
stakeholders.
Achieving the
vision
Looking forwards – The future
Planning in order to ensure that the team sets
realistic targets, and obtains appropriate
resources to achieve those targets.
Looking backwards – The past
Monitoring progress with appropriate control
systems, to ensure that the project meets its
targets and the team learns from its mistakes.
Keeping on the
ball
Looking downwards – The team’s performance
Managing the team to maximize their
performance as individuals and collectively.
Managing the visible and invisible, across
disciplines, divisions, countries and cultures.
Looking inwards – My performance
Managing yourself, by reviewing your
performance to ensure that your leadership is a
positive contribution to the project.
Focussing on
results
Source: Coleman & MacNicol, 2015

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 resides with specific
individuals
 linked to & validated by
formalized role, title, hierarchy
 centralized, command &
control
 the “lone” hero
 unconscious bias?
 schools of thought: Max
Weber, Henry Fayol, Frederick
Taylor, Elton Mayo, Douglas
McGregor, etc.
traditional vs new views of leadership …..

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 pragmatic, opportunistic, incremental
 dispersed throughout the organization
 working with complexity and uncertainty
 leadership is not only left to the designated
leader
 social, collaborative, diverse
 sets the culture and environment for team
success
 leadership as a shared effort by more than one
person
 the roles of a leader and follower are dynamic
 every manager needs elements of leadership
capability to be effective
 schools of thought: Daniel Goleman, Vlatka
Hlupic, Brian Robertson, neuroscience, etc.
traditional vs new views of leadership …..
Daniel Goleman
World Economic Forum 2011

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emotional intelligence …..
 the capacity for recognizing your own feelings & those
of others; managing emotions well in ourselves & in our
relationships
 5 components: self-awareness, self-regulation,
motivation, empathy, social skills. www.danielgoleman.info
 core concept self-awareness:
– having an accurate understanding of how you behave
– how other people perceive you
– recognizing how you respond to others
– being sensitive to your feelings
– intents & general communication style at any given moment
– being able to accurately disclose this awareness to others.

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IQ: 140 EQ: 0

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Traditional:
 Power is based on position within the
hierarchy in the organization
 Legitimate authority & delegated power
 “Command & control”.
The new reality:
 Increasing demands to become leaner
(downsizing, restructuring, reducing levels
of hierarchy)
 New rules of engagement: relational, fluid,
collaborative
 More reliance on soft skills: networking,
collaboration, influencing, relationship
building etc.
traditional vs the new reality …..

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 Emphasizes the biological basis of behaviour, as well as
that gained through life experience
 Has identified:
o how the human brain develops from in utero, through adolescence
to ageing
o the relation between changes in the brain and behaviour, plasticity,
and cognitive development
o the diagnosis and treatment of disorders related to development.
 Developmental neuroscience brings together a range of
different approaches, including behavioural studies,
genetics, neural circuits, computational modelling, imaging,
cell biology and psychology.
“ …..provides insights into how our brains perceive, process and respond ….. so helping us
to understand how we best learn, focus, and motivate ourselves and others.”
Professor Walsh, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL
neuroscience and leadership …..

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Part 3: The 3 key competencies of a project leader
Those things over and above technical abilities that make the difference:
business acumen, interpersonal skills and organizational intelligence.
1. Vision and the Big Picture
Understanding how the project fits with the strategic direction of the organization,
developing the vision for the project and aligning key players and other stakeholders
• Project vision provides clarity and understanding about the
project aims and outcomes
• The Big Picture provides the context of market, economy, etc
• Understanding “success”: visible, implicit, latent
Crucial questions for projects:
•The Strategic Question: What's the rationale and relevance?
•The Stakeholder Question: What are the expectations?
•The Activities & Processes Question: What will we need to do?
•The Capabilities & Capacity Question: Do we have the necessary resources, skills and bandwidth to do this?
•The Impacts Question: What do we want to happen as a result?
•The Learning Question: How can we learn from this and how will we share it throughout the enterprise to help
improve what we do?

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2. Building Key Relationships
Identifying, developing and maintaining relationships with key
players
• Identify the range of stakeholders and their particular
attributes
• Key players: sponsor, client, project team
• Develop and maintain relationships
• Dynamic not static: active and continued review, reappraisal
and renegotiation throughout the project
• Organizational intelligence
• Recognizing the political dynamics
• Improving your power base and influence.

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3. Communication and Engagement
different facets of communication, including branding and marketing,
which help to build engagement with and commitment to the project
• Building credibility and support
• Strategic or tactical?
• Essential or nice to have if time and budget permit?
• Facilitating feedback
• Traditional and non-traditional channels
• Branding and marketing
• Framing appropriate communication

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LowHighCentralisation
Low Collaboration High
Individual rules
Low level of collaboration and low level of
centralisation. Organisation has:
•Delegated authority and decision-making
to appropriate levels and/or locations
•Low cross-functional working or
organisational networking opportunities or
facilitation
Process rules
Low level of collaboration and high level of
•Defined structure and hierarchy for
decision-making
•Low cross-functional working or
organisational networking opportunities or
facilitation
Relationships rule
High level of collaboration and low level of
•Delegated authority and decision-making
to appropriate levels and/or locations
•High incidence of cross-functional working
or organisational networking opportunities
or facilitation
Community rules
High level of collaboration and high level of
•Defined structure and hierarchy for
decision-making
•High incidence of cross-functional working
or organisational networking opportunities
or facilitation
Project Culture Matrix™

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Individual rules
Low level of collaboration and low level of centralisation. Organisation has:
•Delegated authority and decision-making to appropriate levels and/or
locations
•Low cross-functional working or organisational networking opportunities or
facilitation.
What type of Project Leader/Leadership thrives in this culture?
•High self-reliance and can develop support networks and relationships for
self, team and project
•Can work with ambiguity and uncertainty
Process rules
Low level of collaboration and high level of centralisation.
Organisation has:
•Defined structure and hierarchy for decision-making
•Low cross-functional working or organisational networking opportunities or
facilitation
•Highly structured and organised, process driven
•Recognises project governance team and sponsor critical to success
•Feeds up, waits for and accepts decisions from more senior level
•Recognises his/her power may come from the size and status of
the project
•Works well with influence and power based on position, role or title
•Networking and relationship building not as important as
formalised authority
Relationships rule
High level of collaboration and low level of centralisation. Organisation has:
•Delegated authority and decision-making to appropriate levels
and/or locations
•High incidence of cross-functional working or organisational networking
opportunities or facilitation.
•Organisationally intelligent: understanding power bases, influencers, able to
build strong relationships and networks to own advantage and the
advantage of the project
Community rules
High level of collaboration and high level of centralisation. Organisation has:
•Defined structure and hierarchy for decision-making
•High incidence of cross-functional working or organisational networking
opportunities or facilitation.
•Able to insert self easily into established processes and structures, and
work well within these parameters
•Flexibility and adaptability
•Organisationally intelligent: understanding power bases, influencers, able to
build strong relationships and networks to own advantage and the
advantage of the project
LowHighLevelofcentralisation
Low Level of collaboration High
The type of Project Leader / Leadership that thrives in
each culture

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1.
Organisational
Vision and
Roadmap
2.
Organizational
Values and
Culture
3. Projected
Business Value
4. Sustained
Sponsorship
5. Talent
Strategy
6. Recruitment
and Induction
7. Career and
Development
Framework
8. Educational
Interventions
9. Mentoring
and Coaching
Provision
10.
Communities
of Practice
11. Talent
Program
12.
Developmental
Professionals
15. Alignment
with Academia
16. Alignment
to Human
Resources
(HR)
17. Alignment
to Learning &
Development
(L&D)
18. Functional
alignment
19.
Professional
Body
Alignment20.
Management
and
Coordination
13. Project
Execution
14.
Performance
Framework
Building personal and organizational capability
Becoming an effective project leader, exhibiting effective project leadership. Taking control of your development
and the course of your career. How your organization can assist your personal development. An idealised project
leadership development programme

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transition model
leaving behind the familiar & embracing the new
• Values: on the basis that what you value
is what you focus on, you must change
what you value about your individual
contribution.
• Time: a shift in two dimensions is
needed:
- What you spend your time doing
- Horizon you are looking over
• Skills: accept losing familiar skills,
welcome the discomfort of learning new
skills.
New skills
Enhanced
Delegated
Dropped
Existing
Source: Coleman & MacNicol, 2015

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what does this all mean for us as project practitioners?

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Contact …..
Sarah Coleman
Business Evolution
+44 (0)1636 893716 ext 302
+44 (0)7999 879870
sarah.coleman@businessevolution.co
www.businessevolution.co
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sjcoleman
@business_evolve

Project Leadership - Third Sector Project Management Forum - September 2016

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