They Might Be Leaders

From my experience, everyone can be a leader.  There are leaders all over an organization.  They lead by influence or by position.  Some of them do great things and some do not so good things with their influence within the organization.

Organizations need to look to these leaders that are doing good things by trying to figure out how to replicate those good things across the organization.  Replicating the best practices across the organization seems to be an easy task, but generally it is not that easy.

At the same time, the organization needs to find these leaders who are not doing those great things or even doing things that are counter to the needs of the organization and stop those practices.  Many of this practices may actually be obstacles to getting work done or serve the customer.

One thing that organizational leaders and managers need to do is to get all the employees on the same page and thinking like a leader.  In theory, this should put all employees pulling in the same direction that the management in pushing.

What does this have to do with project management?  Well two things.  The first is that those same employee leaders will be members of the project team.  Some will do good things and some will not. They will use their leadership powers for good or evil.  So project managers need to identify this dynamic and get everyone moving toward the project completion. Second, this dynamic across the organization creates multiple projects for the project manager to pursue.  Identifying these areas to create efficiency will assist the project manager in showing the business impact of their projects.

One thing that project managers need to always understand is that a project must solve a business problem and have an impact to the organization.