The Future of (Project) Leadership

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It was Winter in Stockholm

I remember. It was winter in Stockholm, before the turn of the millennium, back in the glory days of business travel. Some time ago.

A whole contingent of project managers had flown in for a global program review. I was one of them and I was quite excited.

I came to report the status of my little sub-project - the QA portion of an application system delivery- and my presentation went well.

I was rather proud of myself.

At dinner that evening, as other fellow project managers exchanged war stories, drinks, and anecdotes, I felt a warm buzz of belonging and camaraderie.

Until a well-lubricated technical executive interrupted our flow state.

He snapped:

"But guys! ... c'mon! ... no offense ... but a project manager is really nothing more than a glorified secretary*"

" ...you just create some charts, manage meetings, and track deadlines!"

Every single PM turned around and looked at him funny.

To this day, I still remember that executive and that team dinner ...

A Misunderstood Profession

Every project manager, at some point in their career, has known the frustration of being underestimated, undervalued, or merely seen as a coordination function (at best) or a task tracker (at worst).

The rise of Agile and DevOps and the availability of powerful collaboration software tools have made things worse.

There is now an unspoken but growing sentiment that the old-school project manager may not be needed at all.

Venerable institutions like PMI (Project Management Institute) have started to react.

PMI says that the 7th edition of their PMBOK Guide (Project Management Body of Knowledge), released last year, is "a major re-think of project management".

I made a quick word count analysis, and looking at my (admittedly non-scientific) graph above, I think PMI has finally gotten the message loud and clear.

Beyond techniques and certifications, project management has always been, first and foremost, about the Art of Change Leadership.

How to lead people and organizations to deliver a desired value within the constraint of time and resources, and despite the resistance of the status quo.

Too many overtechnical folks and clueless executives still fail to understand this simple but critical idea.

Power Skills are the Future of (Project) Leadership

"Power skills" is the new term for what we used to call soft skills.

There is an interesting paradigm change which is that the so-called "hard skills" are now considered soft, in the sense that they are becoming fungible and replaceable commodities that change often.

This is compounded by the rise of AI.

Being able to program in a given language, or operate a specific tool (hardware or software) will soon have to compete with AI solutions at a much lower cost.

Contrast that with (Power) skills such as negotiation, communication, problem-solving, collaboration, strategic thinking, empathy, or active listening.

In the PMI, Pulse of the Profession (2023), "PMI defines power skills as abilities and behaviors that facilitate working with others and help project professionals to succeed in the workplace."

These are the skills that the best project managers have always known to master and leverage.

And these are the skills that will make a difference in the future of (project) leadership.

Eric's Note:

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