What It Takes to Be a Good Project Manager

Barry Z. Posner, Santa Clara University

Project Management Journal 18, no. 1 (March 1987)

SELECTING A GOOD project manager is not a simple task. Being an effective project manager is an ongoing challenge. The complex nature and multifaceted range of activities involved in managing projects precludes easily identifying managerial talent and continually stretches the capabilities of talented project managers. Two seemingly contradictory viewpoints have been advanced about what is required to be a good project manager.

One perspective prescribes a set of personal characteristics necessary to manage a project (1). Such personal attributes include aggressiveness, confidence, poise, decisiveness, resolution, ...

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