Why is good leadership important?
- Prevents interpersonal conflict
- Prevents high staff attrition rates
- Makes it easier to recruit staff
- Improves absence and sickness rates
- Likely to produce a better quality of work
What makes a good leader?
- “Leadership is the ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve success.” APM (2012).
- Help maintain and promote project’s vision
- Have energy, drive and commitment to motivate the team
- Reinforce positive relationships
- Build a productive project and working environment
- Raise morale with clear achievable goals
- Act as a coach/mentor to encourage personal growth
- Help resolve exceptional events
- Provide productive and constructive feedback
- Protect the project from unwarranted external criticism
- Lead with a different focus at different times
Things staff need before they can be motivated
- Supervision
- Adequate work conditions
- Acceptable company policies
- Salary
- Civility and professionalism in peer relationships
How to motivate staff
- Achievement- being able to achieve at your job, having short clear definite targets
- Recognition- having people seek your opinion
- Work- enjoying your job
- Responsibility- having responsibility for your work
- Advancement- new challenges
- Growth- e.g. new skills, contacts, career ambitions
How to motivate stakeholders
- Stakeholder = has a vested interest in the outcome of a project
- Process: identify, assess, develop, engage, manage
- Identify- who are the stakeholders?
- Assess- who are the influential people?
- Use a stakeholder management plan to determine who are/who you want to be high power high interest stakeholders
- Develop communication plans
- Stakeholders may not want to be influenced
- Stakeholders may not want to exert their power
- Help may be needed to influence them
- Engage and influence stakeholders
- Enact the plan and make sure it worked
- Manage stakeholder expectations
- Better understand the risks, benefits and user requirements
- Identify groups against the project
- To acknowledge the influence of the organisation on success
 |
Stakeholder Engagement Plan |
Glossary
- APM = Association for Project Management
- Leadership = the ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve success. (APM, 2012)
- Stakeholder- has a vested interest in the outcome of a project
References
- Association for Project Management (2014), APM Project Management Qualification Study Guide, Association for Project Management, Buckinghamshire.
- Association for Project Management (2012), Body of Knowledge, 6th edition, pp68, Association for Project Management, Buckinghamshire.
