Making Project Mangers Better Leaders With The Ten Six 360 Assessment
A Project Manager is expected to lead teams that produce results that meet or exceed expectations of all stakeholders. Stakeholders include customers, management, suppliers, and team members. The challenges of leading the team in a complex environment with multiple stakeholders are many. Many organizations expect the Project Manager to do this through mastering the tools and processes of project management – planning, scheduling, organizing, and managing.
Managing projects is one of the most challenging jobs in any organization
You can learn how to master project management tools, practices, systems and processes through training, books, and mentoring. However it often is not enough. Mastering these tools does not mean that the Project Manager is a good leader and that their team will produce good results. Project Managers who are poor or mediocre leaders will very often see their teams deliver average or below-average project results.
For companies this is a substantial risk. Project Managers who do not lead well regardless of how masterful they are with other elements of project management, can impact their organizations in multiple ways, including:
- Team burnout and turnover
- Longer timelines for getting things done
- Blown budgets
- Dissatisfied customers and other stakeholders
- Lost profitability
While risky for the organization, poor leadership abilities are also a problem for the Project Manager, whose career advancement depends on being able to successfully take on more complex and demanding assignments.
What happens if a Project Manager is not a good leader?
Good leadership is a combination of knowledge, skills and experience in working with others to get the right things done. Companies with great leaders in their organizations enjoy more success. And great leaders enjoy more opportunity to grow and advance.
The Project Manager’s self mastery is extremely important. Some would say it more important than even the mastery of the PM tools and processes. In reality they are complimentary. A Project Manager who is capable of drawing on the full extent of their emotional, intellectual, and relationship skills will perform better than the Project Manager who lacks self-awareness.
One of the most effective means of acquiring this knowledge is through Ten Six’s 360 degree feedback: feedback provided to the Project Manager about their talent to lead from project team members, bosses, peers, and internal and external customers and suppliers. With this information, the Project Manager has access to what needs to be strengthened in order to become a better leader.
How does a Project Manager develop into a better leader?
Extensive research has shown that emotional intelligence (EQ) of the leader (Project Manager) is directly correlated to team performance and success with customers. If the leader’s EQ improves, team performance improves and by extension, project performance improves. EQ is, fortunately, something that can be developed and deepened as a capability.
EQ is the one tool that, if tended to, can take a technically proficient Project Manager and make them into a much more effective manager and a stronger leader. Strong leaders have the capacity to create environments where teams are more effective, stakeholders happier with results, and overall project performance is higher.
The above diagram depicts how leadership presence, i.e. EQ is the critical ingredient for a Project Manager to become a better and more effective leader.
The Ten Six 360 degree assessment for Project Managers
Ten Six’s Positive Influence Predictor is a web application where the Project Manager learns and grows their EQ. It measures the Project Manager’s current pattern of behavioral traits as they see it and as others see them so that they have feedback on how to develop stronger character traits. The Ten Six instrument allows the Project Manager to quickly learn how to take charge of their own development, which is the single most important step a Project Manager can take toward realizing creative purpose and finding personal fulfillment.
The assessment teaches that the Project Manager is responsible for knowing whether they generate positive influence or shrink their influence with others through over-used or under-used personality traits. The 360 tool, when combined with coaching, enables Project Managers to take charge of their leadership qualities and pick one trait or a few traits to improve at a time.
Call us today (703) 910-2600 or email us at [email protected] to assess your Project Managers leadership capabilities. Start your program for improvement now and ensure project success.
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