5 Habits of a Great Project Manager

In many ways, a great project manager is not unlike a great sports coach. He or she needs to be someone who can identify the individual strengths of each team member and should always be putting those people in the position they need to be in to thrive. He should always be making sure that each team member is contributing to the larger goal and that everyone has all of the information that they need to effectively do their jobs on a daily basis.

Much like a sports coach, they should also always be focused on the big prize: completing a project on time, on budget and above and beyond the client’s expectations. There are five key habits in particular that a great project manager has to have.

1. Communication Skills

One of the most important qualities that a great project manager has to have is a heavy emphasis on communication. Team members are not at their best when they’re working in a vacuum – that goes against the purpose of a team in the first place. By creating an environment where communication is a necessity, a team manager will be setting up a situation where everyone is always moving forward at all times.

2. Leading by Example

Another important quality of a great team manager involves leading by example. If there are consequences to negative outcomes in a project, the project manager needs to be susceptible to them, too. If you want your people to be great, you have to be great yourself.

3. Delegating Responsibility

Not all team members are created equally. Not every employee is going to have the same core set of strengths. A great team member should be able to quickly identify where and how certain members excel and put them in position to do great work for the benefit of the client.

4. Adaptability

Another important habit of a great project manager involves a certain sense of adaptability. Projects are constantly evolving – if a project manager can’t adapt, they will only end up falling into the same traps over and over again.

5 Risk Mitigation

Finally, a great project manager should be able to identify certain types of risks before they actually occur. If certain activities are creating a potentially dangerous situation, the project manager should already be working on ways to avoid those issues before they have a chance to rear their ugly heads.

These are in no way intended to sound like the only qualities that a project manager has to have in order to be considered great. By putting these five core qualities on display day in and day out, however, a project manager will be well on their way towards satisfying clients, getting the most out of employees and being a true asset to a company in the long run.

Key Takeaways:

• Project managers need to be able to adapt to anything that stands in between their team and project completion.
• Project managers need to be excellent communicators above all else.
• Project managers should always focus on what they need to do to put each individual team member in a position to utilize their core strengths.