Project managers (PM) are naturally considered leaders since they claim near total responsibility for their projects. Though they do not manage the resources in some occasions, still they are project leaders. One cannot take both management and  leadership as the same thing. Yukl defines the terms leader, manager and boss to specify people who play the role of leadership. Here, you’ll see, leadership is used to deal with management as well.

Leadership and management are not the same. An efficient leader always encourages and stimulates his team, to make the members to be more successful contributors, to visualize their unique ideas and finally to act on the call of urgency. 

Definition of Leader vs. Manager

Here’s how leadership and management are defined. Maxwell, in his book ‘The 360 Degree Leader’ has given the meaningful definitions for both manager and leader. He has said that managers execute the tasks with defined methods while leaders themselves work with people. Similarly, Kotter has said that the key elements like planning, staffing, organizing, problem solving, controlling and budgeting are involved in managing. However, the essential requirements like setting direction, inspiring, motivating and aligning people are involved in leadership. Kotter further explained that leadership and management are completely different approaches of action. Each of them represents their individual characteristics and tasks. However, to run projects in today’s changing and complex business environment, both management and leadership skills are important.

Leadership is necessary for a number of reasons. For example, to make change in routine business environment, to run set systems and services properly, innovate and create new products. Above all, leadership encourages others to think differently, take risks, and innovate unique things. Well, management makes sure that the methods work successfully.

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) breaks projects down into these five process groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing. Altogether, PMBOK explains 44 methods of Project Management that barely give importance to the necessity of leadership.

Remember that to be a good project manager, one must be a good leader also. The ability to encourage others in order to make them to reach their maximum potential is very important. Normally, a PM does more than manage a group of tasks on a Gantt chart.

Despite the project manager dedicating to the most expensive and efficient project management tool set to deliver the project timelines, budget, and objectives, great leadership skills are required to make sure that the process goes according plan.

How to Encourage and Inspire Team Members

A project manager often faces ups and downs during his work. Emotionally, a Project Manager is required to handle people’s emotions, to motivate people when they get disappointed, to take the teams together during the difficult times, and finally to make sure that they have concentrated on the goals of the project.

However, it’s obvious that this role is not an easy one. A PM has to realize key aspects about the individuals who are the members of the team like their personalities, what gets them energized, and how to encourage them, effectively. The main strategy here is to understand the members and show the true leadership which means being dependable and motivating.

A project leader must establish an emotional connection with each member of the team personally. This causes each team member to think about the project more emotionally rather than simply as a source of paycheck. Usually, the words "Thank you", literally, will do the trick. However, even the occasional small gift to team members will energize them during the project work and keep them on track.

Knowing the Limits

The toughest job for a Project Manager is to say "no" to the members of the team. Some projects cannot be completed on time, or may have to slip their budget or scope. Sometimes, the PM will have no choice except to not push the team members in order to complete the project on time. No amount of pushing can save a project, sometimes.

The main problem for a Project Manager is to recognize the right time to say “enough” and no project management training can prepare you for these moments. Sometimes, treating the team members badly only for the sake of accomplishing a project will result in a disaster, and it’s hard to know when.

How to Improve Team Members

A Project Manager can further display leadership skills by improving members of the project team. This will result in making the project team even more capable as a result of the project work, yielding profitable results on projects to come.

The organizations usually fail to recognize the chance to improve new skills and build skills into workers during the project. Organizations seem to always focus on completing the projects in the shortest possible timeline, thus missing out the huge opportunity of possible future benefit.

Conclusion

Since projects are also businesses, but on a smaller scale, every role necessary for a business should work properly in order to successfully complete the project. Great leadership is very essential as well as a good management for an organization. Therefore, a PM is compelled to be leader as well as a manager for the sake of their project’s well-being.

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