Tips for Team Members:
Team Leadership During a Time of Constraint

By Brian R. King, P.Eng, PMP

As many businesses move from a period of recession, the need to keep tight constraints and control on finances and resources creates impacts on team members that require strong leadership.

The reality of life in the contemporary business environment—where the pressure on companies to perform at top efficiencies and at low process costs—requires project managers to fulfill the following key objectives as leaders of their teams:

1. Obtain the right people

2. Communicate openly

3. Keep the focus on the project tasks

 1. Obtain the Right People

Your primary role as project manager is to build a team consisting of the right people with the right skill sets who are committed to achieving the goals of the project.

You may have to reassign duties, augment from other sources, have team members learn new skills, or help individuals who are unwilling or unable to fulfill their roles transition to another position or to another organization.

To obtain the right people, you must be prepared to look beyond your existing organization to potential outsourcing and contract positions.

If you do not spend time taking action to have the right people, you will merely have a group of people that are agreeing to do the tasks. This could result in high levels of anxiety and stress, as the team focuses on themselves and the things they can’t control, rather than on the greater team.

However, if you have the right team members, your team has a higher probability of being committed to the project and organization and of being self motivated.

 2. Communicate openly

Leadership is not easy. You must step up and communicate clearly and concisely to team members that the goal is business success through project success.

Potential outsourcing is something team members can’t control. You must acknowledge and discuss with the team all news about outsourcing so they can share their feelings and place the issue out in the open. Outsourcing should be treated like anything else that might impact the success of the project. Identify risks associated with it and develop mitigation strategies.

Establish and implement a communication plan and strategy not just for your stakeholders, but also for your team members. Holding open sessions where team members are able to express their concerns or issues early on will help alleviate growing rumors and anxiety among team members. Understanding is gained by clarity and honest communication.

3. Keep the focus on the project tasks

The most important thing you can do is maintain the focus on actions needed to make the project succeed. Team members will be able to gain a sense of control and focus on those things that they can control and less on those things that they can’t control.

This focus, if maintained, can be extremely powerful and allows team members to enhance their own personal leadership.

You are the example and you should ask yourself: “Do I talk more about things I can’t control, or deal with those things that I can control and influence and take action?”

Your example will help team members focus on those things that they can control rather than those they can’t.

Future decisions are made in the future. However, it is your actions and behavior of today that will influence those decisions.

Brian R. King, P.Eng, PMP is president of Millennium 3 Inc. Training and Consulting, which is driven to help businesses, government and associations improve productivity in leadership and organizational development. He is CEO and president of LEI – Lafleche Environmental Inc and a PMI Global Registered Education Provider, as well as a PMI SeminarsWorld^® 2009 instructor. He welcomes your questions or comments on this tip.