The X factor of project leaders

In his new book for APM, Gordon MacKay, project management capability lead at Sellafield, rethinks the stereotype of the command-and-control leadership style and finds out how highly effective leaders really behave.

What does good project leadership look like in 2020? Well, the measure of an effective project leader is the function that they perform – and that function now differs significantly from the traditional stereotype of the project leader of the past.

The drivers of this change in project leadership have emerged incrementally and piecemeal on many fronts, and their significance for the project manager has gone largely unnoticed. My research for a new APM book on project leadership uncovered four of these key drivers:

1 Project delivery teams are distributed across multiple organisations

One discrepancy between traditional portrayals of project leadership and what is needed now is the result of changes in the organisational structure and constitution of delivery teams. Project managers now rarely reside in functional hierarchical organisation structures, presiding over extended teams with full line authority. Today, the project manager may have a few line reports, beyond which a project team may consist of multiple delivery partners, an integrated project team and a supply chain extending across multiple disciplines and organisations. Contracts between partners may also vary over the lifecycle of a project.

The effect of these structural changes during project delivery severely undermines the traditional stereotypes of project management. The reality is that the organisational hierarchy down which the project manager traditionally deployed assertive command-and-control behaviours is gone. Projects are also increasingly delivered in brownfield environments, where delivery is now obliged to defer to – or at least take due account of – existing operations and interdependencies with other projects.

2 Interdependent technology means that any change is complex

Another source of change affecting the role of the project manager is the increasingly interdependent technologies permeating both delivery and deliverables alike. This results in greater complexity during delivery, as projects by definition introduce change. Now, even a small change in a deliverable or a delivery schedule has effects that can cascade in sometimes unexpected and unpredictable ways across the project because of the complex ways in which different technologies connect.

3 Subject-matter experts are more qualified to make many decisions than the project manager

Another driver of change is the often glossed-over fact that it is an empowered multidisciplinary team of subject-matter experts, not the project manager, that really delivers the project. Only through delegation and empowering these experts can the challenges of repercussive change management be met. Simply put, the project manager is increasingly neither qualified nor able to match the pace that emergent technical decisions necessitate.

4 Assertive command-and-control behaviours are counterproductive

I knew that it would be important to define what, if anything, is distinctive about the behaviours required of project leadership, compared with other kinds of leadership and management in general. However, I became aware that I was in fact carrying around two contrasting and even contradictory portrayals of project leadership and its behaviours.

On the one hand, traditional narratives emphasised the centrality of assertiveness, particularly where command-and-control behaviours are portrayed as being central to effective project leadership. That might include the ability to impose compliance on others, and to hold them to account.

But at the same time, my personal experience offered a very different account. The project leaders I knew and respected exhibited behaviours that were the opposite of those traditionally portrayed. They were not assertive but encouraging. They coached rather than directed, and by behaving in a way that fostered mutual respect, they inspired commitment and loyalty from the project team, rather than imposing and demanding compliance. I realised that I was far from alone in seeking to reconcile these opposing views, as few benefit from being on the receiving end of command-and-control behaviours.

There are valuable and powerful insights emerging from research in neuroscience that backs this up. MRI brain scans coupled with blood analysis reveal the detrimental physical and biological effects of such dominance behaviours, which actually trigger pre-conscious neural ‘threat’ reactions. In effect, they actively inhibit rather than promote effective performance.

What works in the fields of battle or sport is actually counterproductive in complex project delivery environments where, by contrast, neural capacity must be optimised rather than compromised, and where mental agility, not conformity, is critical. Command-and-control behaviours are therefore demonstrably and actively counterproductive. What’s more, since the project manager’s role has itself fundamentally changed, these behaviours are now redundant.

A simple question

In my book, I aimed to give robust explanations and supporting evidence for this new view of project leadership, plus a model supporting the establishment of effective individual and organisational project leadership behaviours that can be assessed. However, my awareness of the four main drivers of change and their role in clarifying the form and function of project leadership might not have come about were it not for one small question.

“How would you measure project leadership?” was the question a colleague put to me over coffee, which triggered the research that led to me writing the book. I assumed answering it would be straightforward. In my role, I had already established a metric for assessing and measuring project complexity. What could be so hard about assessing and measuring project leadership behaviours?

Finding the function

It became clear early on that the function of the project manager in delivery has changed fundamentally. It must now reflect and address the challenges posed by the factors redefining the project manager’s role, and the effective form their project leadership must therefore adapt. So, what characterises the most effective project leadership behaviours in project delivery?

It is now widely acknowledged that project managers’ behaviours and style of leadership have a disproportionate impact on project culture (and hence delivery effectiveness) compared with formal qualifications or experience evidencing team-building behaviours. A project manager’s qualifications and experience may be necessary, but they are not sufficient indicators of competent project leadership in practice.

The key drivers of change now mean that the project manager is unable to assert authority through command-and-control behaviours (and under which neuroscience now draws a clear line). They also reveal the pressing need for and increasingly critical function of a form of leadership that spans both organisational boundaries and a broad network of stakeholders.

This is a form of leadership that nurtures the realisation of individual and team potential to harness the power of collective synergy. The power of the project manager in leadership is no longer something imposed through management behaviours from the top down. Rather, it is the power that the project leader influences and releases through their ability to act as a catalyst. This leadership inspires and empowers willing collaboration.

The X factor of project leadership

Yet personal experience has also taught me that to be effective, a project leader also needs an additional X Factor, which often hinges on their ability to deliver a team. I had never really paused to consider either what specific leadership behaviours achieve this, or how they do so. The publication of the APM Body of Knowledge 7th Edition brought me up short with its significant shift in focus from stakeholder management towards stakeholder engagement. It emphasised that, by definition, stakeholders cannot be managed, thereby highlighting the necessary competence of the project manager in securing both influence and engagement.

As I sought to define what should characterise effective project leadership, many traditional assumptions about project management behaviours conflicted with what I realised was now needed. My daily assessments of those managing projects that exceed £350m made me increasingly aware of the significant discrepancies between the team-building and collaborative functions of modern project managers and what are still portrayed as good leadership behaviours.

The modern mix

One such behaviour is the ability to hold others to account. After all, the debilitating impact of dominance behaviours coupled with the implied suggestion that things be allowed to reach such a stage begs a question as to the competence of the leader themselves. Where have they been? Have they not realised that things are going awry? Have they failed in their coaching and development of the individual?

This new function of project leadership highlights how project management is endlessly evolving. Project leadership now inspires and nurtures the emergence of a truly collaborative team, realises the potential of each of its members, and creates a synergy that surpasses the capability of any individual. In 2020, project leadership should be characterised by a humble acknowledgement that its truly immense power is not imposed or commanded, but nurtured, realised and released.

Further reading

Project Leadership by Gordon MacKay will be available from APM in spring 2021. For information and to pre-order your copy, visit apm.org.uk/book-shop