Top 5 Leadership Styles in Project Management

Effective leadership styles are crucial for every organization to drive their projects to success. It is fundamental for the project managers to possess a diverse set of leadership styles to utilize in varied situations and motivate the team to achieve their assigned goals. In this blog, we will discuss the top 5 leadership styles covered during a PMP Exam Prep Course.

Types of Leadership Styles

Transformational Leadership:

Project Managers who apply this leadership style aim to motivate and inspire their team members to achieve their full potential. Through this leadership style, they enlighten the team with a compelling vision, inculcate innovation and inspire them to take accountability. Positive reinforcement and mentorship are a crucial part of Transformational Leadership style. It helps in creating a culture of continuous learning and positive change.

Servant Leadership:

Project Managers who apply this leadership focus on empathy, humility, and service to others. They are understanding of the needs of their team members, and support their growth in personal and professional aspects. The aim of Servant Leaders is to foster trust and collaboration to make the team members feel valued and motivated. In turn, it helps team members to dedicatedly complete their tasks and support others in doing so too.

Transactional Leadership:

Project Managers apply this leadership to communicate the clear expectations from the team and rewarding based on a preset criteria. The team is motivated to perform well and ensure ownership of their work through a system of incentives and rewards. The main goal of this leadership style is to help project managers drive productivity while maintaining project discipline.

Situational Leadership:

Situational leadership is modifying one's style of leadership according to the particular requirements of the circumstance and the team members' degree of maturity. Using this approach, project managers evaluate the skills and readiness of their team and modify their leadership approach as necessary. Situational leaders optimize team performance and accomplish project goals by offering the appropriate degree of assistance and direction.

Collaborative Leadership:

The project manager serves as a collaborator, facilitator, and student for the project team and stakeholders, under this leadership style. The project's goals, plans, and ambitions are jointly created. They share resources and project operations. The benefits of collaborative leadership for project management include increased team innovation, productivity, and quality as well as stakeholder alignment and trust.

Conclusion:

To sum up, the top 5 leadership styles covered in the PMP exam prep course gives project managers a flexible toolkit to help them manage their teams and ensure project success. Project managers may inspire excellent performance in their teams and adjust to a variety of obstacles by learning these leadership styles. Project managers can use a variety of leadership techniques, such as charismatic, situational, transformational, servant, or transactional leadership, to successfully navigate challenging projects and produce outstanding outcomes.