Portfolio Entry 1: Project Leadership Skills and Self-Assessment

This portfolio entry delves into the crucial aspects of project leadership, differentiating it from project management by emphasizing the influence a leader has on their team. The entry begins with a self-assessment of the student's leadership qualities, highlighting their ability to communicate ideas, ...Read More

Running head: PORTFOLIO ENTRY 1
Portfolio Entry 1
Topic: Personal Learning Portfolio - Project Leadership
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Self-assessment as a project leader........................................................................................2
Assessment of a leader from another perspective..................................................................3
Identification of the required leadership skills.......................................................................4
The current state and future of a project with respect to the acquired leadership style.........4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The fundamental difference of responsibilities and the way to conduct them forms a
difference between a Project manager and a Project Leader. This is dependent upon the way a
person manages to either handle a project from its initial phases to the project completion or
lead the entire team towards a unified goal by making the team follow the path as per their
views (Hoegl & Muethel, 2016). The competency of a project manager is dependent upon the
skills that a person gathers through practice and learning, but leadership competencies are the
ones that a person is born with, and is further elevated by self-assessments and self-
development. Following would be a discussion on the self-assessment of a Project Leader,
the assessment from another perspective and identification of the required leadership skills of
a leader in a project. This would also be defined as the characteristics of a project leader and
the future prospects of a leader.
Self-assessment as a project leader
As per the leadership qualities that have been developed in this section, the ways by
which a project leader can be distinguished from the project manager is the qualities that a
person possesses (Buba & Tanko, 2017). This is not just the abilities of a person to develop
the skills required for obtaining a certain project goal but also relies in making the people in a
project team be influenced by the views of the leader to meet a certain goal.
Assessing the qualities within self, it can be said that I am effective in making the
people in my project team convey the basic ideas about a project and make the team
understand that I am available at any instance that they would require me to be accessible in
case of a trouble (Aga, Noorderhaven & Vallejo, 2016). I am more interested in the effects or

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the outcomes of a project to find out what are reasons for which the project is progressed
towards to reach the outcomes of the project.
I would also like to add that I am always keen ono motivating the people within my
project team at any instance possible, whenever I see my project team to be somewhat
disoriented or demotivated. I converse with them at a more personal level than personal level
to understand that they might be having in continuing with a said task required for the project
(Coleman & Bourne, 2018). If any person within the team is not being able to see the goal or
envision the project outcome in the same way I do, I do not coax the person into follow my
view but try to understand their point of distinguish. I think that with these, I add value to the
project team and at the same I ask my project team to exert feedbacks for me, be it negative
or positive. With these, I believe that if the feedback is positive, I would be able to redeem
myself more, and if I find that the feedback is negative, I take is in a much more constructive
way to make sure that I take them to rectify myself.
Assessment of a leader from another perspective
As a project team member, a project leader is not someone who tells the project team
what to do, but helps them to see together in what they can achieve. This is why, for the
project team members, it is easy to distinguish the project leader and the project manager
(Komives & Wagner, 2016). A project team can either consider a project manager as a
project leader, or might even not consider it this way. Sometimes, the person who might not
be appointed as a project manager can also be considered as a project leader. It is not just the
designation that decides who might be the leader of a project (DuBois, 2015). Any person
who ideates the project goal, more than making it be perceived as a task to perform is
regarded as a project leader from the perspective of a project team member.

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Identification of the required leadership skills
A project team leader must possess the following leadership skills to project
themselves more as a project leader than a project manager:
 Leading the project team throughout the project
 Presents concern about the outcomes of a project
 Develops a vision towards the project goal and what purpose the project would
serve as a whole
 Effectively engages people along a project progression
 Exerts more freedom than a project manager about controlling people and
giving orders to them
 Has the ability to add value to a project team
The current state and future of a project with respect to the acquired leadership
style
When a person effectively shows the characteristics of a project leader, there are
various added integrity, enthusiasm, empathy, competence and delegation of tasks presented
to the project. The future of a project is definitely affected with these implementations
naturally. It is mostly the positive effects that are exerted upon a project due to effective
leadership skills (Snethen et al., 2016). The most important resource in a project is a project
team, and it is found that due to the effect of a good leadership skill, the project team is
unified to work as a team and becomes much more productive than expected. If the same
leadership competencies are presented to the team in future, it can be seen that the project
would gain a huge perspective of completing all the project phases in the most effective way

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possible, utilizing the least amount of resources and within the scheduled time and budget
(Ellis, 2015).
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that the competencies that a project leader must have
effects the project in the most feasible way possible. When the project is carried on with
effective leadership, it is found that an entire organization is found to be changing for the
better under better leadership and management skills. Slow moving and complex business
environments have also seen the effect of feasible leadership on the management of the
projects handled by an organization and this is why in the future, it is perceived that the world
where business would be more volatile, leadership would exert control over decentralized
networks and would lead the organization towards imperative success and competitive
advantages.

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References
Aga, D. A., Noorderhaven, N., & Vallejo, B. (2016). Transformational leadership and project
success: The mediating role of team-building. International Journal of Project
Management, 34(5), 806-818.
Buba, S. P. G., & Tanko, B. L. (2017). Project leadership and quality performance of
construction projects. International Journal of Built Environment and
Sustainability, 4(2).
Coleman, S., & Bourne, M. (2018). Project leadership: skills, behaviours, knowledge and
values. Association for Project Management.
DuBois, M., Koch, J., Hanlon, J., Nyatuga, B., & Kerr, N. (2015). Leadership Styles of
Effective Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance
Teams. Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance &
Marketing, 7(1).
Ellis, G. (2015). Project Management in Product Development: Leadership Skills and
Management Techniques to Deliver Great Products. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Hoegl, M., & Muethel, M. (2016). Enabling shared leadership in virtual project teams: A
practitioners’ guide. Project Management Journal, 47(1), 7-12.
Komives, S. R., & Wagner, W. (Eds.). (2016). Leadership for a better world: Understanding
the social change model of leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Snethen, J., Arterberry, K. B., & Henderson, S. L. I. (2017). Maternal-Child Health Nurse
Leadership Academy: Using Leadership Development to Improve Patient Outcomes.