Advanced Leadership Skills Overview

NK Shrivastava and Phillip George, RefineM LLC

This month, we shift from a series on advanced technical project management skills to a series on
advanced leadership skills. We provide an overview of key leadership skills, including understanding
leadership and applying the differences between leadership and management, harnessing emotional
intelligence successfully, understanding six fundamental leadership styles, and applying a set of key
leadership skills. Mastering these skills will help project managers get the most out of their teams.
In this article, we describe advanced leadership techniques for project managers to help them lead their
teams to success. First, project managers should be able to understand leadership and contrast it to
management. Second, they should harness emotional intelligence to develop their personal leadership
skills. Third, they should understand and apply situational leadership using six leadership styles. Finally,
they should study key leadership skills including developing clarity and focus, inspiring and motivating,
communicating effectively, and more.
What is Leadership?
Leadership can be difficult to define because of all the specific roles leaders can and have been expected
to play. Some famous business leaders have limited definitions of leadership. Peter Drucker, for
example, states that The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers while Warren
Bennis argues for a more expansive role when he states that Leadership is the capacity to translate
vision into reality.1 On Wikipedia, leadership is defined as the ability of an individual . . . to lead or
guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations2.

1 Kruse, Kevin (2013, 9 April) What is leadership? Forbes.com. Accessed 10 July 2016 from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/2/#44437d77e825
2 Wikipedia (2016). Leadership. Wikipedia. Accessed 10 July 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership

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There are many different dimensions of leadership, including physical, mental, spiritual, and the macro
and micro levels. Among the different definitions, a few common themes emerge: leaders are expected
to provide inspiration and motivation, align the team to a vision, and above all, get results. How leaders
get results differs greatly from how managers get results, and the differences will be explored in greater
depth in the following section.
Leaders vs. Managers
Harvard Business School professor John Kotter provided one of the landmark articles on the differences
between leadership and management. He argued that it was possible to excel as both a leader and
manager, but that it was difficult and required a clear understanding of the nuances of each role3. The
differences can be summarized by the following statements:
1. Managers help teams cope with complexity, while leaders help teams cope with change.
2. Managers set the plan and budget, while leaders set the direction.
3. Managers organize and staff a project, while leaders align staff to the vision.
4. Managers solve problems, while leaders inspire the team.
As we can see from these statements, the work of managers is just as important as the work of leaders.
Both managers and leaders contribute greatly to project success. As a result, project managers need to
be able to use both management and leadership skills well in order to succeed. In addition, both
managers and leaders can benefit from harnessing emotional intelligence, the subject of the next
section.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Project Leadership
Emotional intelligence has been explored by several influential thinkers, including Daniel Goleman,
author of the Harvard Business Review article Leadership That Gets Results and Dr. Travis Bradberry
and Jean Greaves, author of the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Emotional intelligence is defined as a
persons capability to recognize his or her own emotions as well as those of others, identify and label
feelings appropriately, and use information gained from this recognition and identification of emotion to
guide his or her own thinking and behavior4.
Goleman identified four fundamental capabilities of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, selfmanagement, social awareness, and social skills /relationship management5. From these four categories,
the pattern emerges that project managers need to be able to recognize their own emotions and social
skills and then work on managing them in a constructive way. Bradberry and Greaves expand on each of
the four fundamental capabilities in their book, and provide some tips on how to develop skill on each
part6.

3 Kotter, John P. (2001, December). "What leaders really do." Harvard Business Review.
4 Wikipedia (2016). Emotional Intelligence. Wikipedia. Accessed 10 July 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
5 Goleman, Daniel (2000, March-April). "Leadership that gets results." Harvard Business Review.
6 Bradberry, Travis, PhD. and Jean Greaves (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart.

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One of the advantages of the four fundamental capabilities model is breaking down aspects of
emotional intelligence so that individuals can identify their strengths and weaknesses and work on
improving those aspects. The breakdown of six leadership styles in the next section is a useful
introduction to situational leadership that allows project managers to apply the same principle. By
identifying areas of strength and weakness among both emotional intelligence and leadership style,
project managers can create a plan to utilize strengths and overcome weaknesses.
Six Leadership Styles
In the same article where Goleman discussed the effect of emotional intelligence, he also laid out six
fundamental leadership styles that were observed in different business situations7. The styles are
coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching. Knowing what each style is
and when it works best is crucial to success as a leader.
Figure 1 outlines each of the styles by mode, a summarizing phrase, the corresponding emotional
intelligence competencies, when each style works best, and what impact each style tends to have. Note
that on the pacesetting style, the impact depends largely on the team members being led and whether
they can meet the high performance standards.

Figure 1. Six leadership styles as defined by Daniel Goleman.

7 Goleman (2000).

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Leadership Skills
Emotional intelligence is the foundation of the ten advanced leadership skills we have identified. By
enhancing emotional intelligence and working on the specific skills outlined below, leadership capability
can be increased greatly. We define the first five leadership skills on which to focus as the following:
1. Developing Clarity and Focus.
2. Inspiring and Motivating.
3. Effective communication.
4. Relationship building.
5. Developing others.
After these five crucial leadership skills are worked on, our next five are as follows:
1. Strategic Thinking.
2. Managing Change.
3. Decision Making.
4. Collaboration.
5. Delegation.
Conclusion
Effective project leadership depends on mastering three concepts in addition to a wide variety of skills.
First, project managers need to understand what leadership is and what it isnt. Second, they need to
know what emotional intelligence is and how to increase their emotional intelligence to help their teams
perform better with increased morale. Third, they need a solid grounding of different leadership styles
and the wisdom to apply each style at an appropriate time. Once this foundation is in place, project
managers can begin working on specific leadership skills, including the ten mentioned in this article as
well as many others.
Mastering the leadership skills described in this article puts project managers in a strong position to lead
even large and complex projects with multiple teams. By mastering the foundational principles,
including emotional intelligence, project managers can help drive results for their teams.
Do you want to learn more about how to develop your leadership skills as a project manager? Join us
for our free monthly webinars. Our series on leadership topics begins in August.

www.refineM.com Contact@refineM.com 405 N. Jefferson Ave, Springfield, MO 65806 417.763.6762

References
1. Bradberry, Travis, PhD. and Jean Greaves (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA:
TalentSmart.
2. Goleman, Daniel (2000, March-April). "Leadership that gets results." Harvard Business Review.
3. Kotter, John P. (2001, December). "What leaders really do." Harvard Business Review
4. Kruse, Kevin (2013, 9 April) What is leadership? Forbes.com. Accessed 10 July 2016 from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/2/#44437d77e825
5. Wikipedia (2016). Emotional Intelligence. Wikipedia. Accessed 10 July 2016 from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
6. Wikipedia (2016). Leadership. Wikipedia. Accessed 10 July 2016 from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership

www.refineM.com Contact@refineM.com 405 N. Jefferson Ave, Springfield, MO 65806 417.763.6762