Leadership

Question 1

What is leadership?

Answer 1

Leadership is the ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve success.

Question 2

What makes a good leader?

Answer 2

• Some who helps to maintain and promote the project’s vision among both the project team and elsewhere.
• Have energy, drive and commitment, leading by doing and motivating the team throughout the project life cycle.
• Reinforce positive relationships, for example providing clear feedback on performance.
• Build a productive project and working environment in which a focus is maintained on getting work done and moving the project forward.
• Work to raise morale setting clear achievable goals.
• Act as a coach and mentor to team members to promote personal growth.
• help ensure that exceptional events are resolved, and spot opportunities as well as threats which have an impact on motivation.
• Ensure that productive and constructive feedback is provided to enable individual and organisational improvement.
• protect the project from unwarranted external criticism.
• Lead with a different focus at different times, according to the situational demands at the time.

Question 3

Why is motivation important and what happens if the team has poor motivation?

Answer 3

Motivation is vital element in leadership. The PM will need to demonstrate leadership skills to get the team pointing in the right direction as soon as they can, but in a way it lasts. It is important that the PM ensures the team is fully motivated so that the problems associated with poor motivation can be avoided. Poor motivation will lead to:

• Interpersonal conflict - individuals may misunderstand their roles and the roles of others.
• High staff attrition rates - People leaving.
• Difficulty in recruiting - Depending on reputation.
• Absence and sickness
• Poor quality of work

Question 4

What motivation theories do you know of?

Answer 4

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - tiered approach from physiological (basic needs) to self-actualisation (personal growth and fulfillment)

Herzbergs two factor theory - based around factors that bring job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. True motivators include achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, advancement, growth .
Hygiene factors - factors that eventually lead to dissatisfaction include: company policy, salary, working conditions, supervision, relationships with peers.

Question 5

What leadership model are you aware of?

Answer 5

i’m aware of Hersey and Blanchard’s leadership model which is based on ‘situational leadership’ They thoerised that leadership can be categorised as 4 styles. The leader should adapt its attempts to influnece to meet the needs of their followers based on their readiness to perform each specific job, task or activity. individuals have different needs and abilities, which needs to be recongnised. The leader needs to take into account:

1. Low readiness - intelligent, willing but doesn’t have the knowledge and experience to carry out a job.
2. Moderate readiness - The person relies less on the leaders to provide oversight. Needs less how to instructions and more reassurance that they are doing fine on their own.
3. High readiness - the person adapts their working practices and manner to make improvements. They are confident in their ability to complete tasks and activities.

The leader needs to be careful not to over manage a person that is capable but also not leave someone who needs support and not just left to get on with it.

Question 6

What are the advantages of changing leadership styles to suit people’s needs?

Answer 6

1. The leader can provide the most appropriate amounts of support and direction according to the maturity of the people being led, thus making sure that they are not left alone to fail or become unnecessarily micro managed.
2. The people being led feel that the leader is in tune with their needs and will respond positively as a result.
3. Delegation will not be confused with abdication.
4. Staff that need direction will be approached and led in an appropriate manner.

Question 7

What types of leadership styles are there/

Answer 7

Autocratic:

• Centered on the boss who holds all authority and responsibility
• leaders make decisions on their own without consulting subordinates and they reach decisions, communicate them to subordinates and expect prompt implementation.
• Autocratic work environment does normally have little or no flexibility.
• Guidelines, procedures and policies are all natural additions of an autocratic leader.
• Statistically there are very few situations that can actually support autocratic leadership.

Democratic:

• Subordinates are involved in decision making.
• Unlike autocratic, this is centered on subordinates contributions
• The democratic leader holds final responsibility, but is known to delegate authority to other people, who determine work projects.

Coach style - Focus is on identifying and nurturing the individuals strengths of each member of the team. They also focus on strategies that will enable their team to work better together.

Transactional - focused on group organisation, establishing a clear chain of command, reward good behavior and punish bad.

Transformation - inspire staff through effective communication and creating an environment of intellectual stimulation.

Question 8

What are leadership qualities?

Answer 8

• Honesty
• Delegate
• Communication
• Confidence
• Commitment
• Positive attitude
• Creativity
• Promote vision
• Inspire
• Intuition
• Approach
• Trustworthy
• Ability to change style to suit team member

Question 9

What are the key ingredients for a high performing team?

Answer 9

Motivation
Measurable targets
Pay incentives

Question 10

Why are appraisals important?

Answer 10

• ensure employees are keeping up with their corporate responsibilities
• help to develop employees
• set personal objectives and career goals, whilst assigning responsibility

Question 11

What is total quality management?

Answer 11

TQM is a management theory which was developed from the recognition to include employees and see them as vital members of an organisation and its growth rather than simply a task force. Characteristics of TQM:

• focus on customers
• Continuous improvement
• Statistically review and identify opportunities for improvement
• A culture of self-responsibility

Question 12

What are good team working principles?

Answer 12

• Trust
• Common Goal
• Open
• Good Communication
• Good understanding of different working types

Question 13

What steps are there for success?

Answer 13

• Passion
• Work
• Focus
• Push
• Ideas
• Improve
• Serve
• Persist

Question 14

What is the WELL certification?

Answer 14

It is a tool for advancing health and wellbeing in building globally. Rating against a set of criteria:

1. light
2. water
3. air quality
4. movement
5. Community
6. Innovation
7. Mind
8. Thermal comfort
9. Sound
10. Nourishment

Question 15

How did you manage client expectations during the WELL gap analysis considering the stage of the project?

Answer 15

• Gave realistic timescales as didn’t want to impact the progress of the project.
• Set deadlines to the team
• Tracked the teams progress and updated the client regularly
• did initial assessments to not absorb everyone’s time at the critical point of the project.

Question 16

What is a communication plan?

Answer 16

• The target for the communication
• What communication will be undertaken
• How will it be communicated - formal verbal, informal verbal, formal written, informal written, non-verbal (toe, pitch, body language, frequency and volume)

Question 17

How can leadership and motivation be applied in practice?

Answer 17

1. Show confidence in each person.
2. Encourage a ‘take charge’ attitude, whereby people make things happen
3. Encourage involvement and empowerment with each person
4. Give credit and praise to each individual that deserves it
5. Foster team work and encourage a togetherness
6. Help to build pride in individual’s contributions
7. Encourage team work and for each person to help each other.
8. Provide opportunities for everyone to learn new skills and abilities
9. lead and personally contribute to the development of each person.

Question 18

How did you motivate the team?

Answer 18

• Clear goals
• realistic timescales
• explained how it was a good opportunity to explore the certificate for the team and project
• worked with the team to suit timescales and not impact the actual project
• Set up meetings to review together as a team.

Question 19

What leadership skills were required to enforce the new tracking system for RFIs?

Answer 19

• I put the new system within the PEP as a process to be adhered to
• I explained the impact of RFI’s not being answered in time (EOTs)
• I gave clear timescales for information to be answered.
• I communicated clearly and made the tracker concise
• focus on getting the work done and moving the project forward efficiently.

Question 20

What is the difference between management and leadership?

Answer 20

1. Leaders create visions, managers create goals
2. Leaders build relationships, managers build systems and processes
3. Leaders coach, managers direct
4. Leadership involves leading a group of people, management need only be concerned with responsibility of things and not just people management.
5. Leaders have people that follow them, managers have people who work for them.
6. Leadership is about inspiring and management is about planning.

Leadership and management must go hand in hand. They are not the same thing but are linked and compliment one another.

I would say that as a PM you need to be both.

Question 21

If you wanted to develop one leadership skill, what would it be?

Answer 21

I would look to develop the skill of providing constructive feedback. I would want to develop this so that I focus on positives but can give opportunities and ideas for improvement in areas whilst keeping morale.

Question 22

Talk me through the difference between transactional leadership and transformational leadership?

Answer 22

1. Transactional leaders react to problems as they arise, whereas transformational leaders are more likely to address issues before they become problematic
2. Transactional leaders work within an existing organisational culture, while transformational leaders emphasise new ideas, thereby seek to transform culture.
3. Transactional leaders reward and punish according to organisational standards, while transformational leaders attempt to achieve positive results from employees by keeping them invested in projects, leading to an internal higher order reward system.
4. Transactional leaders appeal to self interest of employees who seek out rewards for themselves, in contrast with transformational leaders who appeal to a group interest and notions of organisational success.
5. Transactional leaders are more akin to the common notions of management, whereas transformational leadership adheres more closely to what is referred to as leadership.