How the 5 Core Themes of Project Leadership Develop Your Integrity in a Project Environment

Here’s the secret….What Every New Project Manager needs to know is the EXACT SAME THING as what Every Expert Project Manager needs to know about project leadership!!

It’s simple. It can be summed up in one word: INTEGRITY.

Integrity Defined

“Integrity entails being truthful at all times, avoiding deception, and acting ethically in all occasions, especially when no one else is looking.” Integrity matters most when you face consequences. And if there is one thing that the project world is full of, it’s consequences!

Integrity in the World of Projects

One benefit of integrity is that it is the basis for a virtuous cycle in projects. The product of integrity is trust, which is formed when promises are fulfilled and transparency is present. Over time, trust builds a base of credibility for a project leader. Widely recognized credibility eventually speeds decisions and sponsorship, which helps a project proceed more efficiently and experience greater success.

Furthermore (and even expert PMs will forget this from time to time), as a project manager you need to ensure the success of three major constituencies:

• Your customers (who get the benefit of the project).
• Your team members (who do the investigating, designing, prototyping, and producing).
• Your sponsor (who invests the resources).

If you are going to be efficient at making all 3 successful, you will want to align their interests. And it’s integrity that will help you best align them.

For example, let’s say that your project is anxious with risk and the only acknowledged contingency is overtime work for the team. This plan is probably unsustainable for your team members and their families. Or you’re mid-project and you learn that your product will fall flat in the marketplace. This is a ticking time bomb for your sponsor’s finances.

These are the kinds of situations when you need to have the courage and integrity to bring the issues to light for the good of your project. It may sound easy now. But telling your sponsor that you need to add funding or lengthen schedule with a customer proposal deadline looming, or throwing up a flag that the product isn’t worth another day of investment - these can be downright terrifying events.

So what do I do?

1. Plan. Integrity starts as a consistent thread in your project plan. One that delivers undeniable value to customers, delivers the needed Return on Investment (ROI) for the sponsor, and affords a sane, sustainable work environment for the project team.

1. Never let your project live a lie. For example, if the project is behind schedule with little chance of recovery, your sponsor and customers need to know so that they can make informed decisions.

1. Behave. No doubt, projects are stressful. They will put people’s integrity to the ultimate test. Things will go wrong. And it’s our behaviours as project managers that can get us into the most trouble. The issue avoidance, the ambiguity, the drama, the martyrdom, the victimhood, the us-vs-them mentality. These tactics are passed down from project manager to project manager. Please - don’t pick them up!

The Five Core Themes of Project Leadership?

If negative behaviour undermines project management, then high-integrity behaviour enhances it. The following Five Core Themes of Project Leadership, practiced daily, help you ingrain integrity into all that you do in the project environment. They are the everyday leadership behaviours that help you get the most bang for the buck from your PMBOK theory:

When you are practicing the Five Core Themes regularly, here is what it looks like:

• Expectation management.
• Ownership.
• Winning.
• Narrative.
• Eliciting the Best.

1. Expectation Management: You and your team make realistic, responsible commitments, even under duress. You deliver tough news in a way that respects the people impacted. You minimize surprises and therefore make it more likely that the project is remembered for success.

1. Ownership: You avoid victimhood, blame, complaining, and martyrdom. You fully commit to project results and don’t give yourself the back door escape of excuses. You lead change constructively and follow any standing process that you don’t have the energy to modify.

1. Winning: You are tenacious, but in a way that’s sustainable. You remove fear from the project so that your team can focus on results (sometimes that means “taking the heat”). You don’t permit an infinite loop of overtime work, and you offset work spikes with corresponding dips as appropriate.

1. Narrative: Communication is not a process for you, it’s a mandate. You consider it essential that stakeholders are aligned to the same story. You drive transparency and risk management into communication. You provide simple updates that are easy to understand.

1. Eliciting the Best: You don’t just try to get the best from your team, you aim to tap into the highest potential of ALL your stakeholders including customers, managers, and suppliers. You extend planning, trust, and empowerment as far down as possible within the organization. You listen, you compliment in public and critique in private, and you align roles with aspirations.

Again, these project leadership skills are required for both beginning and expert project managers alike. Put them up on your wall. Think about them daily. Weave them into everything you do. And you will make big strides toward becoming a great project leader!

Adopted from: Rick Valerga in https://www.govloop.com/