Introduction
As detailed in a previous blog post, “What is a Project-Based Organization?”, since the 2nd half of the 20th century there has been a corporate shift from the functional bureaucracy management practices to project-based organizations. This change has started as a reaction to the evolving nature of the business environment from stable, slowly changing technology, predictable customer requirements, and mass production to rapid, continuous technological innovation, demanding customers and highly customized products (Turner, J.R. and Keegan, A., 1999).
One of the most important challenges faced by today’s project-based organizations is to instill a culture of teamwork and collaboration across the company and within its project teams.
While teamwork is important in functional, hierarchical line management, I consider it not as difficult to ensure it as in project-based organizations. Functional operations teams usually have standardized processes, running them more or less in the same sequence for many years and decades. This is in stark contrast with project teams in project-based organizations, that are quickly assembled to run a highly complex, uncertain initiative that will last for a limited time, usually not more than one or two years.
This blog post’s quest is to understand what is the role of the project manager in building teamwork and collaboration between the members of the project team.
The emergence of the Project Manager as a relational leader in the organization
While management is about processes and systems, leadership looks at how it can support people by offering them guidance and direction. DuBois, M. et al. (2015).
In an increasingly globalized environment, organizations embrace project management as the method to implement successful strategies. In order to obtain the desired results out of these highly complex and uncertain initiatives, companies recognize that they require not just project managers, but project leaders.
However, between sitting in a leadership position and acting as a leader there are big differences. Time and experience, failures and success, learning and observing are all factors that contribute to the development of leadership traits. Good business outcomes are no longer enough for the aspiring leaders, they also need to aim high towards creating a culture where people are inspired to work together for a common purpose.
In this context, teams are the go-to solution for organizations that deal with complex and difficult activities says Salas, E. et al. (2008).
As the challenges companies face continues to grow, the tasks often exceed the capacity of an individual to take informed decisions and working in a collaborative way is becoming the norm.
The increasing dependency of organizations on teams makes them critical in project environments. To get the most from the project teams, the project manager needs to empower them to create meaningful work.
In complex projects it’s no longer possible for the project manager to control and direct all aspects of the project work. Instead, the project manager needs to provide an overall plan of action, to facilitate collaboration between the team members, to give key team members decision-making authority, to promote creativity and innovation that contribute to the project goals.
A project cannot succeed without the common effort of the project team members. DiTullio (2009)
A set of behaviors a high-functioning project team should share: treat others respectfully, support teamwork, understand the impact of your actions on others, make timely decisions, provide and request ongoing feedback, share knowledge and information.
In this context, the project manager has an important leadership role in the project team cohesion. Thamhain (2004)
Project leaders play a definitive role in developing team virtues such as work ethics, respect and trust, honesty and courage. Kloppenborg and Petrick (1999)
These authors are sketching a project managers’ portrait as a central figure on the organizational scene, one that can gather up teams and strengthen teamwork, ensuring that projects and organizations reach their goals.
Team members’ morale, Dye (2011) found, has a critical impact on their engagement, behavior and productivity.
A few rules a project manager can follow to increase and keep a team’s morale at high levels: communicate and listen, establish clear performance goals, assign well-defined responsibilities, show commitment, share honest and reliable feedback, encourage innovation and calculated risk taking, make effort to maintain a safe, healthy and friendly workplace, instill a team spirit.
Project leaders play a definitive role in building teams. DuBois, M. et al. (2015)
Team building should be one of the project manager’s primary activity and it should be integrated as a daily task. The authors consider that providing emotional support and motivating team members to stay focused in times of stress and ambiguity have a great impact on the odds of delivering positive project outcomes.
The post-heroic, post-alpha male model of leadership is usually defined as pervasive throughout the organization, not bounded by function and hierarchy, an interdependent and collaborative practice of trust, empathy and empowerment (Cunliffe, A. L., and Eriksen, M. 2011).
Relational leadership derives from this discourse, it presents how leaders are in relation to others and recognizes the intricate nature of our relationships.
The authors look at relational leadership as a way for the leader to understand his everyday interaction with others, how the leader acts in seemingly mundane, constantly emerging exchanges. This view emphasizes the important role the leader plays by being present, responsible and accountable in the daily flow of interactions with others. The leaders must understand the intersubjective nature of these relationships and to self-reflect on the assumptions they have about their relationships with others. After they examine the influence of their behavior, leaders will be able to anticipate what matters in their relations, will create open-dialogue opportunities for fruitful conversations, mutual understanding and respect.
All in all, relational leaders must be aware of their influence on others, must guard against their biases, and must be prepared to continuously learn and adapt.
The increased adoption of project management in organizations have changed project managers’ leadership identity from a managerial perspective to a relational one. Psychogios et al.’s (2017)
The ramping up levels of business complexity and uncertainty also determined this shift. In this context, project-based organizations construct a leadership identity that moves between project coordination tasks and developing relationships with project stakeholders.
In this key, project leadership is identified as relational and not something that belongs solely to the leader.
Conclusion
As companies gradually shift from functional, bureaucratic to project based structures, project management took over as the main vehicle through which they achieve strategic objectives. During this transition, the project manager emerged as a leader in the organization, the one that coalesces diverse, cross-functional individuals into fine-tuned teams.
I hope that this analysis helped us to understand the realm of project-based organizations and the role of their project managers in setting up teams and ensuring collaboration.
We saw that project managers are valued due to their role and ability of helping companies fulfill complex and difficult strategic initiatives. It seems they can do that by acting as relational leaders, playing a central role in orchestrating and empowering teams to reach project goals.
References
Cunliffe, A. L., & Eriksen, M. (2011). Relational leadership. Human relations, 64(11), 1425-1449.
DiTullio, L. A. (2009). Expected behaviors for project team performance: road rules, not road rage. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—North America, Orlando, FL. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
DuBois, M. et al. (2015) ‘Leadership Styles of Effective Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance Teams’, Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance & Marketing, 7(1), pp. 30–46.
Dye, L. D. (2011). The significant role of the project manager in establishing and maintaining team morale. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2011—North America, Dallas, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/team-morale-motivation-ideas-maintain-6175
Kloppenborg T. J., & Petrick, J. A. (1999). Leadership in project life cycle and team character development. Project Management Journal, 30(2), 8-13
Psychogios, A., Kapsali, M., and Prouska R. (2017) Theorising Relational Project Leadership Identity: An International Qualitative Study, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Leadership Symposium, Theme: Leadership, Followership & Identity, May 2017, Mykonos, Greece
Salas, E., Cooke, N. J. and Rosen, M. A. (2008) ‘On Teams, Teamwork, and Team Performance: Discoveries and Developments’, Human Factors, 50(3), pp. 540–547. doi: 10.1518/001872008X288457.
Thamhain, H. J. (2004). Linkages of project environment to performance: lessons for team leadership. International Journal of Project Management, 22(7), 533-544.
Toma, L. C. (2021). Project Manager as a Relational Leader in Project-Based Organizations. The University of Sheffield International Faculty, City College
Turner, J.R. and Keegan, A., 1999. The versatile project-based organization: governance and operational
control. European management journal, 17(3), pp.296-309.
