Growing competition in the labor market suggests that merely job-based technical skills are no longer enough. In reality, such skills include creating work breakdown structures, managing a project’s budget, assessing earned value, and critical path diagrams. All these skills require technical training and the application of professional knowledge and tools for successful work. What are the social skills of a leader and how do they help unlock the potential of project managers?
Social skills (also known as “human skills”) are also important, their development is becoming increasingly popular among jobs in all industries. These skills provide a real advantage to leaders who have learned to use them well.
Identification of technical and social skills
Technical skills allow you to acquire a certain competency in our chosen industry. In fact, this technical background is a key component for every project. This typically includes programming skills, project management competency, or systems design experience. Technical qualifications, certificates and experience are the most common basis for hiring.
The best thing about social skills is that they help us make the best use of our technical base in a particular situation.
Social skills provide and enhance technical skills. This leads to innovation and creativity in today's fast-paced environment.
Often, when applying for a job, they are considered secondary to technical ones. However, an obsession with technical skills compared to social ones may be due to the need to focus on immediate progress.
Here is a list of the social skills necessary for successful project management.
12 most sought after social skills for project managers
Guide
Just as each crew has its own pilot, just as the strongest army has its own commander, so any result-oriented team should have its own leader. Being a leader is not only creating a good atmosphere and motivating everyone, but also solving everyday tasks.
Successful leadership is essential for project managers. This means that they must be able to lead and manage teams, establish a vision, motivate and serve employees, train and inspire all team members.
Effective project managers manage from a strategic and operational point of view, they convey a vision, evaluate effectiveness and make sure that all team members are provided with powerful tools, money and other necessary resources for successful work.
To lead people means to serve them, taking responsibility for how to make the team’s life better, and the projects more successful. A key skill in project management is leadership, not just management. You must provide a vision and project plan to empower your team.
Confidence building
No leadership without trust. A true leader is one who has earned the trust of the team and can trust it without hesitation.
By being transparent about decisions and involving people in the decision-making process, the project manager can quickly succeed. He should be interested in the growth of team members and help people achieve their specific goals.
Communication
The ability to communicate well, understand and be understood is also extremely important for people involved in project management.
Effective communication is the key to any relationship. This skill of the project manager affects not only the team, but also the clients and all interested parties.
Poor communication jeopardizes the successful outcome of the project, while clear communication mainly consists in understanding and maintaining dialogue, rather than in one-way communication. Therefore, it is very important for project managers to choose a high-quality online collaboration tool and select individual “keys” for each employee.
Active listening
This is not an innate skill, but a technique that can and should be developed day by day. Listening is directly related to communication. In fact, it is easy to provide constant feedback to the speaker by reformulating what he understood.
Good listening allows project managers to learn more about their clients and team members and to be more involved. Mastering this skill creates mutual trust between all parties involved.
In order to improve active listening, you should focus on a true understanding of what they are talking about and on relaying the transmitted information in your own words.
Team spirit
Various people can participate in projects, including customers, suppliers, sponsors, consultants, a quality assurance team, etc. The team that works on the project interacts with most of these people, so it is important for them to feel safe and trust each other.
For any leader, it is important not only to be a team leader, but also to be a full member of this group. That's why they need to be able to organize team exercises and problem-solving activities in order to develop a project environment that helps people keep in touch with each other.
Project managers need to know how and when to involve people in decision-making, keep the team up to date on new products related to the business of clients, resolve potential conflicts and enhance a sense of team spirit.
Motivation
Any employee will remain motivated if he knows that his work makes sense. Project managers must take care of the various personal and professional needs and goals of their team members and be able to meet them in this direction.
It is not just about financial compensation, but also about a sense of accomplishment, performing complex work, hierarchical growth, or gaining recognition of hard work.
Influence
The ability to get people to change their minds is another valuable skill for project managers.
Influence is power, and achieving greater influence in the workplace can be critical to the success of a project.
It can help you work more efficiently and make you more respected, as well as make your voice heard and recognized. However, gaining this influence requires some time and effort.
There is a fine line between influence and manipulation, so try to understand them and effectively use relationships with team members to ensure cooperation in making the right decisions and achieving all the goals of the project.
Making decisions
Decisions can be strategic or emergency, routine or operational.
Each project manager has his own set of criteria that help in making decisions. In the decision-making process, they should pay attention to how this will affect others and, if necessary, consult with their colleagues.
There are several basic decision-making methods:
- Authoritative (team), when the decision of the project manager is final.
- Consultations with the participation of team members and stakeholders.
- Consensus - a decision is made that most team members like.
- Random decisions are often made using the coin toss method.
Negotiation
Negotiation skills are also needed for project managers, who must always ensure that they listen to both parties and make decisions in a fair manner. They can negotiate with almost everyone every day.
A compromise is an essential element in a proper negotiation process. You can often encounter competing interests, and your task is to place these different interests on one page to achieve the goals of the project.
Conflict Resolution
Only an ideal world implies the absence of conflict and contentious situations. In fact, conflicts are part of any system in which people participate.
Conflict resolution can be one of the basic social skills that any project manager needs to master.
They may encounter various causes of conflict in the project team: from competition, communication gaps, unclear requirements to personnel policies, etc.
Well-resolved conflicts can bring people together and make them more focused and productive.
Management of risks
Any project can go beyond the plan, project managers are not wizards. It is sometimes very difficult to anticipate and prevent risks before they become a problem. However, you must do your best to stay abreast of your projects, controlling risks and actively mitigating them as much as possible.
Risk management is truly your professional experience. The sooner you identify risks, the higher your chances of avoiding them.
Coaching
A good leader is a good mentor. Coaching helps employees reach their own potential and move from the current skill level to the next level.
To be an effective mentor, the project manager must be able to help people change their thinking about the situation and help them work better.
When people know that a mentor helps them, they take additional steps to achieve their professional goals.
Final thoughts
It should be equally important for project managers to develop technical and social skills and abilities.
Create project plans, manage your budget, evaluate time and effort, but also remember to keep your team organized, informed and happy. Social skills will help you become the best project manager you can be.
What are your favorite project management skills? How are you trying to develop them? Feel free to comment below.