Episode 191: PM Leadership Tools: Adaptive Project Leadership (Project Leadership Series) (Free)

Play Now:

This episode is sponsored by The PMP Exam Simulator:

So far in our Leadership Podcasts Series we have first heard Rick Valerga and Thomas Juli who are both authors on project leadership discuss their leadership models on expectation management and leadership principles. Then we spoke with Andy Kaufman and we learned how to develop our own leadership skills and those of our team - including the appropriate worksheets for our premium listeners..

Now... it’s time for some hands on project leadership tools.

Enter Susanne Madsen (www.susannemadsen.co.uk) and learn about adaptive project leadership.

Adaptive project leadership is a project leadership tool that will help you identify the appropriate leadership style for your project team members. Just like every project is unique, so are your team members. Your leadership style has to follow suit.

As a special bonus item, Susanne is sharing some free leadership tools. She is making her adaptive leadership white paper and worksheet available to all our listeners. We’re discussing the matrix from this paper in the interview, so you may want to take a look at the filled in matrix on page 3 first. You can manually download the worksheet from pm-podcast.com in episode 191. However, if you use Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or any other app to subscribe to and download our podcasts, then you will very likely already see this file on your computer.

Episode Transcript

Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode #191. I am Cornelius Fichtner. This is The Project Management Podcast™ at www.project-management-podcast.com. Once again recorded in the beautiful baroque town of Solothurn in Switzerland. Nice to have you with us.

So far in our Project Management Podcast Project Leadership Series, we have first heard Rick Valerga and Thomas Juli who are both authors on project leadership and they discussed their leadership models on expectation management and leadership principles. Then we spoke with Andy Kaufman and we learned how to develop our own leadership skills and those of our teams including the appropriate worksheets for our premium listeners.

Now, it’s time for some hands on project leadership tools.

Enter Susanne Madsen and learn about adaptive project leadership.

This episode is sponsored by The PDU Podcast™, which is our sister podcast. It is a convenient way for PMPs to earn unlimited Category A PDUs. It works just like the podcast you are listening to right now: You subscribe once and you’ll automatically receive new video episodes to watch every month. Earning your PDUs is now on autopilot. Visit www.pducast.com. That's p-d-u-c-a-s-t.com.

Adaptive project leadership is a project leadership tool that will help you identify the appropriate leadership style for your project team members. Just like every project is unique, so are your team members and your leadership style has to follow suit.

As a special bonus item, Susanne is making her adaptive project leadership white paper and worksheet available to all our listeners. We’re discussing the matrix from this paper in the interview, so you may want to take a look at the filled-in matrix on page 3 first. You can manually download the worksheet from www.project-management-podcast.com in Episode #191. However, if you use iTunes, Google reader or any other kind of software to subscribe to and download our podcasts, then you will very likely already see this file on your computer.

Susanne Madsen is a project and program manager, mentor and coach with over 15 years experience in managing and rolling out large change programs for the financial sector. She is a qualified Corporate and Executive coach and a PRINCE2 practitioner. She is currently employed as a Program Director for one of the world's largest financial institutions. As part of her job, she coaches and mentors project managers; and her book, The Project Management Coach, will be published in December by Management Concepts.

And now, please adjust your listening style and enjoy the interview.

Podcast Interview

Female voice: The Project Management Podcast’s feature Interview: Today with Susanne Madsen, project and program manager, mentor and coach.

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello Susanne! Welcome to The Project Management Podcast™.

Susanne Madsen: Thank you very much, Cornelius. It is an honor and a privilege to be a guest on your program.

Cornelius Fichtner: So this is The Project Management Podcast’s Leadership Series. Why do you speak and write on the topic of project leadership? What is your driving force?

Susanne Madsen: Well, that’s a very good question, thank you. To my mind, project leadership is really you could say the difference that makes the difference because you can be a good project manager by managing tasks and budgets and plans and resources but to be a great project manager, you really have to be a project leader and I suppose that should be the goal for most project managers to be really good at what they do. And also, it’s a very special thing really to be a project leader. It’s something quite different because the project manager starts to apply their own uniqueness.

So as a project manager, you often operate within certain boundaries that are set for you. But as a project leader, you really go beyond that and start defining your own sets of boundaries and you become more authentic and I suppose that’s why project leaders are of more in their flow and they can have a magnetic personality. They can be very confident. So really, that’s why it’s so fascinating to me.

It’s also worth mentioning that project leaders really is not just about the person, it’s not just about the project manager or the project leader, everybody around them will benefit because they’re in their flow, because they apply themselves, it’s a benefit to the team, it’s a benefit to the customer. So yeah, it’s win-win situation really.

Cornelius Fichtner: As part of these series, I reach out to a diverse group of people to bring them on the program and talk about project leadership. But I have the hardest time finding women who talk about this topic. Why do you think that is? Is this just a man’s domain, project leadership? I couldn’t see why.

Susanne Madsen: No! You’re making met think there whether there is a deeper reason here. It maybe that women are less open about sharing their experiences on leadership or it may be that women are less likely to live in what they do as project leadership. My personal experience, I have no evidence that suggests that.

So in the 15 years I have been involved in project management and program management, I can just say that I’ve seen altogether fewer female project managers. So I suppose from my point of view is there are fewer female project managers, there’ll be fewer female project leaders.

Cornelius Fichtner: Right, or fewer speakers who are female who speak on project leadership. Yeah, that makes sense!

Well on then to our main topic of the interview which is adaptive project leadership. Can you give us a short description of what that means?

Susanne Madsen: Sure! So adaptive project leadership I would say is an aspect of project leadership is the aspect which is concerned with how the project manager interacts with the individual team members. So how do they manage people or as we may, how do they lead, coach or supervise people, anything to do with that interaction.

So at the simplest level, we could say that adaptive project leadership is about the project manager, changing their style of leadership according to who they’re interfacing with. That means that everybody shouldn’t be managed or let in the same way and that’s not the same as treating people differently. Let me just point that out.

As project managers, we should treat everybody the same in terms of the underlying values so which to show respect to everybody, honesty, integrity. That absolutely remains the same. But the way we manage and lead people should vary according to people’s needs.

Cornelius Fichtner: The term itself, adaptive leadership, adaptive project leadership, is this is a term that you have come up with or who came up with this first?

Above are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete PDF transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.