Behavioral Aspects of Project Management

The leader must be sure to take the group dynamics into consideration. It is important to make everyone involved feel that their needs are important. For the project to be a success, everyone participating must feel as if they are contributing and that they are being valued equally.

1) Performance: One has to ask themselves during a project if you have met the objectives of the project. Performance can be measured by evaluating the processes such as scope verification, quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control. The initial performance goals should be outlined in the initial Scope of Work.

The success of a project is ultimately the responsibility of the project manager and how well they can lead and organize their team. Leadership involves influencing people to achieve a common goal or shared objectives (Northhouse, 2007). Assigning the correct leadership style to a project may have a direct impact on a project success. Authoritarian, democratic, transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire are some of the leadership styles a project manager may have. Some of these may be more effective than others at completing projects on time. Morgan (2012) used

There are many different types of leadership styles that are tailored to a firm's goals and resources and the leader must be able to determine which is best. Leadership can make or break an operation as is sets the operational structure and the amount of power each individual has. No matter what a manager must be able to effectively lead a team. They need to be able to motivate individuals and keep them on task so they may reach their goal within a timely manner. Without leadership an operation can fall to pieces if employees lack direction, are unaware of the goal, or lack the passion to execute their task properly.

During the group work in the course it was apparent that a few traits stood out that would help a leader effectively lead the team. First, the leader must understand the project and be able to communicate that to the team members to improve commitment and ensure quality. Second, the team should have common goals as we set forth in our team charter. This provides measurable metrics which will help identify if the team is effective. Third, accountability is a priority from the very beginning. Everyone needs to know their part and the consequences if they are unable to meet the expectations set out by the group. Lastly, the leader must be able to create an environment of open communication to enable team members to give and receive feedback that will enhance the quality of the project.

The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,

A good leader led his team to improve their skills in order to achieve the goals, as Lafaste stated “as a leader, you must be able to relate to the team and earn their respect and loyalty to the goal. This cannot be accomplished by being a dictator and micro-managing the team and the members. A leader must manage and master the core competencies”. Once again, I can point the role of the Project Manager, leading and motivating, not solving the problems but being sure that the problems are solved, by his team.

Of course, equipping leadership qualities, such as charisma, confidence, and determination, provides an extra boost towards the goal. To be a successful leader, being committed and knowledgeable will get the work done, but it takes a team to work well. Building strong relationships with your team members is a crucial part of success. Without trust, the team will fabricate doubt and drown the team. Strong relationships allow you to utilize individual skills from each team member for better efficiency. By encouraging group members to avoid groupthink and push boundaries, the team will step further towards success. Motivating team members provides the team with the determination and force to see the work done. Leaderships in organizations proves critical to the completion of projects and proposals. Providing an environment to learn allows the team to grow together and individually for

One of the most important things a project requires to be successful is top management support. These people in top management positions are stakeholders of the project, and without their support the project will be doomed to fail.

There are a number of organizational behavior concepts that affect the success or failure of any organization; a few examples would be communication, motivation and decision making. Every organization has its’ own organizational culture which defines the organizational behaviors that it believes to be most important. An organization’s values, mission statement, goals and philosophy all make up the organizations culture. An example of an extremely successful company with a very strong organizational culture is Wal-Mart.

The key to being a successful leader is tobbe diverse and trusting. As a leader, it is crucial to have a diverse perspective and understanding of both your followers and the ultimate goal of you company or organization. A leader cannot easily motivate a group to participate if there is not an understanding of each individual’s perspective and background. When this aspect is ignored the team member feels excluded from the project and loses motivation. It is also important to have a diverse perspective towards the goal or mission of the team because other important factors that may matter to the public could be ignored when the leader is too focused on one factor of the project. In order to actually be a leader, one must also have trust in its team. A leader cannot lead without any followers, therefore, the leader must trust its followers when it comes to taking care of specific task for the project.

For being a good team work, it is necessary to maintain a good relationship among the parties. According to Bruce Tuckman, “a high performance team will be created passing the four stages, which includes forming, storming, norming and performing, in his original model.” If the project leader has the knowledge about the stages of group development, it is helpful to build up a cohesive team as fast as possible. Because of the role of client, his project manager should be a project leader in order to avoid some unnecessary conflicts.

Without leadership, a team lacks direction and cohesion. Leadership is there to solve challenges associated with teamwork and to insure the attainment of the main objective of the team effort. Leadership reduces the risks associated with a project. This happens because the person or team providing direction for the project do not get involved in detailed implementation freeing them to see the big picture from which they identify and reduce or eliminate risks. Leadership increasingly means the difference between a successful project and a failed one despite the availability of resources. This is because of the role leadership plays in the effective allocation of resources to achieve the projects objectives.

The developments in the business world have determined companies to develop strategies based on projects. This determines them to improve their efforts and practices on executive project management. However, it is difficult to develop successful projects because of the numerous factors that influence them. The success of these projects depend on the project manages and their teams, but also on the resources that the company can use in these projects. In addition to this, organizational culture plays a very important role in the type of projects developed by companies.

The classic Phrase by Mckinsey organisation, “the culture is how we do things around here” is taken as reference by many great people. It’s true that culture exist in an organisation which influences the work being done and also affects the success or failure of the project.