I never be a Project Manager / Leader, so I think they have a same function to manage a project and reach the goal. Even though in many articles Project Manager and Project Leader have some differences. You can goggle what Project Manager or Project Leader is :).
I’ve been led by some project leaders, sometimes I feel enjoy the tasks and conversation with them, sometimes I just felt like a slave when they give task and give comment to my work. I have some opinions about criteria of good project leader, because I’m a member who always be led by project leader :). So maybe here are the good project manager/leader must be:
They call me “Friend”
As a member I feel comfort to talk with my PM when he/she always act like me. I mean they never positioning their self as a man above me. As simple sentence “They call me ‘Friend’ not ‘You’”. I think the members will work better without any pressures because they work with their friend not there manager/leader.
They know about the time
I don’t like a PM who always contact me when I’m in holiday or when sleep time is coming. They should know about that time, so we as a member can save our energy to get work tomorrow with full energy. Sometimes we still think about email that we received before we sleep. We often bring that emails to our dream and make our sleep not well. And when we wake up, we still feel tired. I think the PM should create schedule email or send later when we start to work.
They assign tasks wisely
We know that you have a lot of task for us, but better you save some tasks to your draft and assign some tasks to us. Don’t give us all tasks that you have, it just make us scary to see our task list. After your member finished their task, just give them some times to take a rest before you assign some tasks to them again. When you make deadline for each task, you should know about their ability so you can give rational deadline for them.
They give motivation
Deadline is a friend. Sometimes deadline like a ghost that suddenly appear in front of us, make us scary and then we down and can’t think clearly. The good PM should give us motivation to make us up again. But most PM just push us to work faster because deadline is coming. Motivation works better then push, we forced to work when they push us, but we work with happiness and think clearly when they can motivate us.
They give appreciation
When the members finished their task don’t forget to give them a good comment before you give bad comment. Say “Thank you, Good job, Cool, etc” it makes us happy and ready to do another task.
Sometimes you need give a reward like you buy something for them, because I think the things that you give is more precious than money. Or maybe hangout together with team and talk about fun thing, don’t talk about work!
That’s my opinion about a good Project Manager/Leader. I wanna hear from you too.
Update
Make it easy
If you have a problem and you send it to your friend worker which is you hope they can solve the problem with the result like you want, but sometimes they have their own way with different result to solve the problem, don’t be stubborn or keep your way and push them to do anything you want. If your result is too difficult to be resolved by them and they can offer another solutions, you can talk to them and find better way though. If the result that is offered by them is almost perfect why don’t you use it? You can move to another problem after finish it and your don’t spend much time to solve it.
Don’t forget to say “Sorry”
If you give task with tight deadline or you give task on the weekend for them, please don’t forget to say “Sorry” first. And check about their availability to do it. If we do that, I think our friends worker will feel more appreciated, and they don’t think like slave who always be pushed by their boss.
Don’t forget to say “Thank You”
The power of “Thank you” always make me have more value. It’s simple but it works. Don’t forget say “Thank you” for everything has done by your friends worker. If you satisfied with their work say double thank you. If you can say thank you by face to face do it, if you can’t do it by phone call, if you can’t do it by phone call you can do it by chat/message/email, ASAP.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/innovate360/6314081175/
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