Leading Complex Projects

CHAPTER 4THE TRAITS AND SKILLS OF EFFECTIVE PROJECT LEADERS

In Chapter 3 we established the remarkable breadth of the complex project leader's job as one of managing upward, outward, and down. In this chapter we will discuss the personalities and decision-making styles of complex project leaders. We are particularly interested in the personality profiles that would make leaders more likely to successfully execute their difficult jobs. We also seek to understand how the profiles of successful leaders may differ from less successful leaders and how successful leaders differ from the larger pools of project managers and engineers from which they are usually drawn.

ORGANIZATION OF THIS CHAPTER

This section focuses on exploring and establishing the links between four traits of project leaders and the success of their projects. These building blocks of project leadership are shown in Figure 4.1. The reader may object to our exclusion of training from this list. It was not an oversight. Rather, it reflects the fact that every one of our 56 project leaders reported quite a lot of formal and informal training in the period leading up to their taking on a megaproject. In any event, it is widely accepted in the project management community (and our observation as well) that virtually all good training in project management is on the job.

Figure 4.1 Building Blocks of Project Leadership ...