Managing Or Leading Teams
As a Project Manager you cannot realistically expect to be popular with all of the staff working for you, indeed Project Management is definitely not a job for people who constantly feel the need to be reassured of their popularity with their work colleagues. As the Project Manager you are there to perform one main task – to ensure the success of the project. However, that very success will largely depend on the work and actions of others under your direction. So do you need to be seen to be managing or leading teams?
Project Management is people management.

Get the right team …
Of course your task of leading teams will be much easier if you have had control of recruitment to the project, especially to the key roles of those staff with most personal contact with you. Therefore, it is almost vital that you are responsible for building the project team. After recruiting the project team you then have to also motivate them to maximize their productivity and provide effective leadership to ensure they are loyal to you and know exactly what is required of them. We’ll return to the three themes of: team recruitment, team motivation and leadership in later postings.