According to Pinto (2010), leadership is less about administration and focuses on interpersonal relationships. Leaders inspire, motivate, influence, and change behaviors of others to achieve a common goal. Leaders involve in an awareness of a partnership, an active collaboration between the leader and the team (Pinto, 2010, p. 109). It is critical in project management to note the idea of leadership as a partnership because it stresses on an important manner in which all leaders are ultimately dependent upon their teams to achieve project goals (Pinto, 2010, p.109). To promote the idea between the project manager and the team, there are four things necessary.- exchange of purpose, a right to say no, joint accountability, and absolute honesty. Success is contagious. Stepping up and being a leader, the leader, the team, and the entire organization. Leadership begets success and success is contagious. Peers mimic the victories.
Effective communication allows all team members to be engaged and follow the four guidelines from the exchange of purpose to absolute honesty. A way of communicating may be through meetings. Specific outcomes are both task-oriented behavior and group maintenance. Group maintenance behavior consists of supportive activities including showing confidence and trust, acting friendly and supportive, working with subordinates to understand their problems, and recognizing their accomplishments (Pinto, 2010, p. 113). Projects are done by people and most projects are done for people. Where a project fails to understand who their stakeholders are, or fails to engage and communicate with them effectively, the project is working in a vacuum. Similarly, if the team themselves are not collaborating effectively individuals can end up working in silos that prevent communications flowing effectively. Other team issues that may cause a project to fail include: