How to Be an Inspiring Project Manager

The job of a project manager is challenging, since it comes with responsibility not only for the success of projects but also for the well-being of teams. Here are some tips on how to lead and inspire your teams, empower them to reach their potential, and help them enjoy the jobs they do.

Don’t Be Bossy

Being a true leader is different than being a boss: it requires a high level of responsibility, involvement, and personal interest in the projects you manage. Kenneth Blanchard, a successful American author who writes about management, once said: “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” This quote applies to the role of a project manager: a project manager should lead and teach, not shout instructions and set unreasonable demands. Continue reading about how to build trust in your team.

Keep Your Team Safe

No one is 100% safe from project failure: it can happen due to human error or Murphy’s law. However, even if such an unfortunate outcome happens to one of your projects, don’t rush to throw the blame on your team and tell the client one of your employees made a mistake. Prove to your team that they’re safe with you and manage the issue, even if it means taking the blame for failure. In her TED Talk “How to turn a group of strangers into a team,” Amy Edmondson describes key ways to build a powerful team.

Motivate and Encourage People

Motivating, encouraging, and inspiring your team are some of the most essential responsibilities of managers. As Meir Liraz, a business writer and author of the book How to Improve Your Leadership and Management Skills, says: “Inspire others to new levels of achievement by using positive encouraging feedback and ideas.” For team members to perform better and realize their talent, help them see that their ideas matter and do change things in the team and at the company. Ask for their opinion and help on different issues. Be sure to give your team members feedback on their input in the project, the things they’ve improved, and what impressed you. After all, feeling appreciated makes every employee enjoy doing their work more.

Optimize Your Work

Being an effective project leader also presupposes skills in work optimization and time management. Helping your team stay tuned to everything that’s happening in the project is what secures your status. To keep organized and make your job more pleasurable, it’s quite reasonable to use a project management tool. For example, Epicflow software can help you drive project success by keeping track of all of your projects, prioritizing tasks, and allocating resources so you can deliver your projects on time and within budget.

The Epicflow mobile development team having a meeting

Prove That You Care

It’s important to show your team members that you genuinely know the inner workings of the project and the job each employee is performing. Everyone wants to see that you’re attentive to their work. Theodore Roosevelt used to say, “nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Make summaries and reports, commenting on the achievements of each of your team members. Prove that you care not only about the outcome of your projects but about the well-being and success of your team members. Praising small victories and bonding with people helps them understand that they belong. Keep reading about key drivers of engagement to get your team involved.

The Epicflow team has found a way to make your PM experience easier and less stressful using software that keeps track of multiple simultaneous projects. Now you can have a complete overview of all running projects, deadlines, states, and responsibilities. Sign up below for a demonstration to find out how Epicflow project management software can improve your leadership status at your company and be your best decision-making tool of all time.