Now an Online Lecture Series! 5.5 PDUs

Service-based Project Leadership

• What is Service-based Project Leadership?
• Why Service-based Project Leaders Matter?
• How do I become a Service-based Project Leader?
• What is the benefit of being a Service-based Project Leader?
• Now Available

What is a Service-based Project Leader?

The new role of the project manager is to serve the project organization, creating a meaningful experience for team members, customers and critical stakeholders. This experience is the fuel that ignites the transformation of people, systems and organizations. Service-based project leaders provide leadership to strategic projects and programs acting in the interest of all stakeholders. They define their success not just by traditional project metrics and rewards, but by the net social outcomes and the intrinsic value of the work itself.

Why Service-based Project Leaders Matter?

Your project management services compete on a global basis and your service is becoming, if it is not already, a commodity for organizations to purchase when and where they want it.

One trend driving the commoditization of project management is the conversion of individually-held tacit knowledge into organizational knowledge by means of standard terminology and processes. Such standardization is a Catch-22 for project management. On one hand, it means the discipline is spreading like wildfire and is increasingly accessible. On the other hand, standardization and accessibility make project management less mysterious-and project managers more easily replaceable.

Service-based project leaders create work that is transformative for the individual and the project organization; they lead work that illuminates individual identities and discovery of purpose. Their leadership unites stakeholders, enabling their rapid self-organization in pursuit of a common goal.

How do I become a Service-based Project Leader?

The service-based project leader aligns their personal aspirations and needs to not only satisfy the overall objectives of the project, but also leave behind permanent benefits.

Building a leadership competency pyramid is essential to becoming a service-based project leader. The MyProjectAdvisor^® Leadership Competency Pyramid framework is effective for project managers desiring to become strategic project and program leaders.

Service-based project leaders continously use self-directed leadership development and Active Leadership Experiences^TM to increase leadership effectiveness and transform themselves into world-class leaders. Self-directed leadership is the process by which an individual, inspired by personal convictions and a purpose, develops and carries out a plan to improve his or her leadership competencies.

What is the benefit of a Service-based Project Leader?

Service-based project leaders create more benefits for stakeholders by becoming skilled at the following:

• Efficiency - Continuously seeking high value (often higher risk) work while developing others around them to move into greater roles of greater responsibility and distribute leadership to its proper owners. This creates value that far exceeds his or her costs.
• Customization - Using an intense focus and understanding of customer needs, the service-based project leader adapts deliverables to meet the needs of stakeholders while initiating transformation of self and stakeholders. Service-based project leaders pursue creativity through the customization of tools and techniques to create memorable experiences for team members and customers.
• Foresight - By using vision and consciousness to foresee and anticipate events, obstacles and opportunities that others do not see, the service-based project leader can then act decisively on behalf of stakeholders. Though not trying to predict the future, the service-based project leader becomes skilled at seeing trends in how people work individually and collectively, listening to the mood and attitudes of stakeholders and recognizing the ebb and flow of events.
• Connectedness - Service-based project leaders thirst for self-discovery and connectedness with self and others. Connectedness gives rise to life giving energy and is akin to a supernatural intuition among participants promoting the rapid self-organization of teams and producing greater results than traditional command and control structures.

By developing the MyProjectAdvisor^® Leadership Competency Pyramid they develop courage to lead strategic projects that are aligned with their value system leading to more meaningful work.

Because strategic initiatives require transformation of systems, processes service-based project leaders demand higher wages.

Now Available

The Strategic Project Leader: Mastering Service-based Project Leadership by Jack P. Ferraro published by Auerbach Books and the Center for Business Practices is now available at Center for Business Practices, PMI Bookstore and Amazon.com.