Attention - Project Managers: Are You Responsible, But NO POWER?

Attention - Project Managers: Are You Responsible, But NO POWER?

Are you accountable for project outcome, without having enough authority? Or without enough power? Do you feel frustrated or clueless? Are you expected to be responsible for something which is not in your control? Here is what you should do? Read on..

As a project manager, many times you would be expected to be accountable for things which are not in your control, e.g.

-         You team may not be reporting in to you directly and may be reporting to your line manager, so they may not be loyal to you, and hence productivity of the project might suffer. But you are held responsible for the project outcome

-         Your team might have some external consultants who are hired by the customer or your senior management. Their productivity is also low because they are dedicated to multiple projects

-         Your project outcome might depend on customer cooperation for completion, but customer might vested interests to delay the project

-         Your manager might not be actively cooperating with you as he is busy in several other assignments, or for some other reasons

-         Your team is losing direction as they could smell that the project is in danger and might not complete, so you might be facing team attrition. But you are held responsible for project outcome, and you can not hire freely from the market, you need to follow the company norms..

-         You have been given a contract copy of a new assignment and asked to put a team in place and start the project in a week or so. You know very well that it will be take minimum a month or two to arrange the team.

There could be many other situations in a project for which you are held responsible but you feel absolutely powerless and clueless, and do not know what to do.

Guys, first of all, be aware that it is an opportunity to grow your abilities when you are confronted with unwanted or unpleasant responsibility. We all grow when we are faced with some challenges. Next step would be, to stop blaming anyone or the circumstances for the current situation, and start looking at possible solutions to resolve the extra piece of responsibility.

Start looking at the possibility solutions to find out:

-         How can you get more credibility with people around you, may be your manager, your team or customer or others. Extra credibility will create lot of bridges with people with power.

-Be prepared that you will never all the authority you need to create an outcome, as Project Management is a balancing exercise, where project outcome is delivered and front-ended by the Project Manager. So learn the art of balancing stakeholders needs and generate power and credibility for yourself as a PM

-         How can you communicate to win the trust and get some favors or people on your side

-         How can you break open some close group of people to get more privy information, just keep an eye on the corporate environment and try generate more power and credibility for yourself

-         How can connect with certain powerful people whom you have ignored so far, with their trust and credibility, which will help you alleviate or resolve the current problem.

Taking complete responsibility is one of the distinctions in the leadership, which only a few people appreciate, and so is the fact that there are very few leaders. If you really invest time and effort in learning this, wouldn’t it be worth millions of dollars?

Let me know if you agree? Try apply this to any of your current issues / concerns that you are facing in your work, and let me know if you have any queries?

Are you working in a project, and want to grow fast in you workplace, much faster than others? Join our Whatsapp group: https://lnkd.in/gjae8DM

?????????? ??????????, Project Management & Leadership Coach

Trainer for Leadership, PMP, ITIL, CISA & S/w Engg.

(Delivered programs Dell, Accenture, EY, Citibank etc.)

https://www.ashok-goyal.com/services.html

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/leadershipcoachashokgoyal

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkbj7kDU8Ct8tcjrfRjIyuQ

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