Acts of leadership in complex projects

In the project management arena it seems common understanding that project managers profile as highly result- and action- driven. Although project management academia nuance this topic, stressing leadership characteristics like team leadership, personal effectiveness, and e.g. interpersonal understanding, others (indeed) focus on achievement orientation. Research by Gehring (2007) concludes with a set of favourable MBTI (Meyers-Briggs) types, with Thinking and Judging ("TJ's") as preferred indicators. TJ's see the world as logical and like to have matters settled. In "Management Drives" terminology this relates to orange, red, yellow profiles. Author's pragmatic research as a program manager on projects X & Y indicates that in complex projects, where one deals with messy problems, another profile might prevail: one that understands patterns, believes in the wisdom of crowds, emerges with the situation, and considers the relativity of (project management) frameworks .

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