Developing the Right Stuff

The importance of obtaining a proper match between the individual’s characteristics and the role requirements is directly related to the degree to which the project is leader sensitive. How this can be achieved is a matter of preference. Fiedler (4) argued that it is often easier to change the situation to match the leader’s style and personality. Hersey and Blanchard (5) and Simon (14) are more optimistic that knowledge and skills can be learned to give the manager a wider range of alternative approaches.

Project managers who have the “right stuff” for effective leadership probably acquired these competencies by managing projects through trial and error, often with some help from mentors and through formal training. In addition to intuition, commonsense, and a sense of confidence, they probably also have a healthy measure of the need to achieve and the need to acquire and use organizational power (8). Success was probably experienced in modest amounts in earlier projects but with more experience and practice, mastery of the project environment evolved into a sophisticated and esoteric art form.