Project Managers Are Better Leaders, Essay Example

In the article “Project Managers are Better Leaders!”, the authors suggest that project managers often have better leadership skills that contribute to their successes in the workplace. Based on the title of this article, it appears that the author has studied the relationship between project management skills and leadership, and suggests that various individuals in different management positions can look at project managers as an example of the actions that should be taken in order to improve effective management. This is relevant to everyone in the business world who wishes to develop their skills. It also relates to me personally for this same purpose.

This article contributed a lot of information to the current level of understanding I had on this topic. While I studied many aspects of leadership in the past, the article draws an interesting comparison between leaders and managers, explaining that managers are not necessarily leaders. Ultimately, a leader is an individual who is able to inspire others to work better and harder and keep them motivated. On the other hand, a manager simply organizes the work process and delegates responsibilities. While it is possible for a manager and leader to be the same person, this occasionally does not occur. However, effective management teams do utilize these leadership principles.

The article defines leaders as those who have mastered the skill of political thinking, which is “the capacity to skillfully influence other people towards a specific goal”. Based on my knowledge of management, managers are simply required to instruct workers as to what they should do and how. However, these tasks often don’t include a need to explain why their work will payoff in the long-term or put it into the scope of the larger project. Leaders take advantage of the opportunity to make the payoff clear, so that workers feel more personally connected to the work that they are doing, thereby increasing the value of the output.

One of the situations in which the author emphasizes the difference between managers and leaders relates to the number of individuals that are under their direct control. While both managers and leaders have many subordinates, the major difference between the two in a functional environment is that leaders tend to motivate, rather than just designate responsibility. In a specific case, leaders use their motivational skills to mobilize resources without being their direct line manager. One the other hand managers are responsible for assigning responsibilities to their workers in a manner that pleases stakeholders and meets corporate objectives. While both missions, if effective, would contribute to increased company productivity, leaders do so in a more efficient way, while managers simply attempt to ensure that the goals are met without going above what is required. Ultimately, leaders are more concerned with the how, while managers are more concerned with an outcome.

An additional difference between managers and leaders that is highlighted by the article is that an effective leader works towards building a strong team by inspiring and motivating a group to work towards a common goal. As a consequence leaders tend to create something new, which is termed by the authors as producing transformational management. On the contrary, managers tend to coordinate things that already exist, which is known as transactional management. While both serve their own purposes, it is apparent that adding new methods and ideas to an organization contributes to their ability to compete effectively, which in turn drives profits. Therefore, managers that have leadership skills are ideal in this particular case. Fortunately, managers that do not currently utilize leadership skills can train themselves to do so, to an extent.

While the message presented in this article was interesting, it was not specific. Therefore, if I could ask the author of the article some questions, a majority of them would deal with how a manager without leadership skills would be able to transform him or herself into an effective leader. Ultimately, the ability of managers to increase the performance of their workers is an indicator of their abilities, which provides them with incentive to make this change. Therefore, while this article sends the message that a change should be made, it would be more valuable to detail how these changes should actually occur.

Ultimately, I agree with the author that it is more effective to be a leader than a plain manager. I would point out to others that disagree with me that it is more imperative to encourage workers rather than to simply designate work, because if they don’t understand why it needs to be done, it likely will not be done correctly. In conclusion, leaders are different than managers because they influence better work quality rather than simply delegating responsibilities. This article teaches us that it is important to guide others through the work process in an inspirational manner. It seems that doing so is beneficial for the business as a whole, and will actually make the workload of the manager decrease. Thus, leadership should always be synonymous with management, although this is an ideal and not a reality.