Attributes of a Highly Successful Project Manager
The best project managers share a few key qualities in common. These skills make them uniquely suited to managing projects successfully and efficiently, with a unified team.
Project managers have a diverse range of responsibilities. They need to be able to communicate the needs of a project with stakeholders, develop project schedules, manage budgets and project quality, cultivate a team, and identify and procure resources.
Project managers do all this and more to ensure the completion of a high-quality project.
With focus, hard work, and the desire to improve, anyone can develop the attributes of a highly successful project manager.
So, what makes a project manager great at what they do, and what skills should any project manager fine-tune to be at the top of their game?
- Great Communication
Top project managers are great at communicating with stakeholders, whether it’s their team members or their clients.
They hold regular team meetings and choose the right tools to facilitate collaborative working. Everyone is kept in the loop with clear goals and objectives, making the whole team more efficient.
Great project managers regularly engage with clients and give them the latest updates. They also know how to have difficult conversations and negotiate effectively, especially with regards to budget, timelines, and scope. - Organizational Prowess
A great project manager doesn’t have to be organized in their own life, but in their line of work, their organizational prowess is unparalleled.
They’ve learned how to order tasks to hit milestones and deadlines most effectively; they know which resources they’ll need to source and when and have a good idea of how much each step of the process will cost and how long it’ll take.
An organized project manager allows the rest of the team to function as seamlessly as possible, with minimal confusion, completing projects successfully and efficiently. - Team-oriented
A great project manager knows that people are at the heart of any project – and that a happy, motivated, unified team is the most effective team.
Therefore, the best project managers make it a priority to check in on their team members’ wellbeing, help them to overcome any struggles, support them to develop their skills, and motivate and inspire them whenever possible. - Strong leadership
Great leadership is difficult to define. Yet, project managers all show great leadership. In practice, this means knowing when and how to delegate, supporting other team members and facilitating a respectful work environment.
Great leaders treat team members with empathy when they make mistakes and guide them on the path to improvement. Likewise, they take accountability for their own mistakes. They actively listen, avoid micromanaging and always take their team members’ ideas into consideration. - Unflappable – mostly
Project managers have a high tolerance for change – and for things going wrong. Instead of becoming stressed – and stressing out the rest of the team by extension – they react calmly unexpected situations and come up with reasonable solutions.
Of course, this might take practice (and everyone is human) but top project managers do their best to self-regulate their emotions and deliver the best possible outcomes for the project and the team, even in times of adversity. - Honesty
Though it might be uncomfortable, a top project manager isn’t afraid to let clients know if their expectations are too high, in terms of budget and/or timeline. In the long run, this creates more satisfied clients, as you avoid misleading them and affronting them with unexpected cost/timeline changes.
This also puts a project manager’s team under less pressure, as their goals are realistic. Not to mention, honesty with your team members creates trust and unifies the team. - Foresight
Great project managers don’t assume that everything will go their way. In fact, they do quite the opposite.
Top project managers think about what could go wrong at every level and at every step in the project timeline. They make a risk management plan accordingly and put a strategy in place to mitigate those risks and delegate responsibility for these risks between the team members.
After all, the top project managers turn challenges into opportunities.