Project Leadership and Governance - Desklib

Running head: PROJECT LEADER SHIP AND GOVERNANCE
PROJECT LEADER SHIP AND GOVERNANCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1PROJECT LEADER SHIP AND GOVERNANCE
Things that I have learnt in this unit
The first thing that I have learnt from this module is the difference between project
management and project leadership. The module has given me an insight into project
management which can be considered as the procedure which ensures that various requisites
of a project are being managed properly such as project timeline, project cost, workforce
management and other technical aspect along with the human resources. However the scope
of a leader is different from that. A leader along with the managerial skills should have
leadership qualities as well (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). A project manager as I have learnt
from the module, might not have the leadership quality, while on the other hand a leader may
not have management skills as well. However, having both the qualities is essential for a
perfect leader. (Harrison and Lock 2017). Hence both qualities are essential if one aims to
become an effective leader, as the role and responsibility of a leader requires having more
qualities than the project manager. Hence a leader is need of having both the skills so as to
aid in the success of a project and to prove effective leadership (Walker 2015). This module
has aided me to obtain a closer understanding of these aspects.
In this unit I have studied the concept of project leadership and governance in detail.
This study has helped me in understanding numerous concepts related to project
management, qualities needed for leading a project (Binder 2016). Although I wanted to
explore the context of leadership as it would help me in my career I had very little knowledge
like what leadership actually is, what are the different qualities related to leadership, how
those qualities should be developed and especially how those qualities need to be integrated
for effective leadership (Basu 2014). I was also unaware of the manner in which a leader lead
an organisation, aligned the leadership with the goals of the organization for effective and
efficient leadership while ensuring effective leadership skills (Heagney 2016). These skills

2PROJECT LEADER SHIP AND GOVERNANCE
are honesty, communication, inspiring teams and provide motivation for work and service
towards organization.
The reason that I was so interested in this subject was that I knew that it will help me
in exploring different areas related to project leadership. As I am a civil engineer I already
had the required technical knowledge for construction project. However, I did not have the
skills required to lead a project successfully. This unit has helped me a lot in learning a lot
about various leadership skills. The aspects that I have learnt in this module include role of
communication, confidence, honesty and the ability to motivate others as part of effective
leadership which will be beneficial for my future endeavour (Takey and de Carvalho 2015).
This module has helped me immensely in exploring the strategy of effective
communication especially in the context of leadership. This module has taught me that a
leader is someone who is not only responsible for learning different areas of the project
including the technical part, but he or she should be able to clearly communicate the ideas to
the team members as well (Lee 2016). It is true that team members are also responsible to
make them familiar with the project ideas. However, the team members always follow the
leader when they have any confusion regarding the requirement of the project (Uhl and
Gollenia 2016). Hence a leader should always be able to lead from front. Leading from the
front does not mean to have authority over everyone, it mean that the authority is accepted by
others as well. However, for that the leader must be a great communicator first, because
leaders must be able to create a presence among team members and this is not possible
without communication, rather effective communication.
The fundamental quality that people expect to see in a leader is confidence of a leader.
Team members often believe that their leaders are individuals with extraordinary confidence.
No one will accept someone as a leader who lacks confidence, hence it is an essential quality