Five Interpersonal Skills Every Project Manager Should Possess

Whenever new managers are appointed, most employers evaluate their industry related experiences and technical skills before hiring them. However, a project manager needs more valuable skills, so as to lead their team members profoundly. Among that, interpersonal skills are the most critical skills. As a good leader, you will need to be able to motivate, discipline and communicate to employees. Every manager needs the following interpersonal skills for effective management:

1. Leadership Skills

A good project manager should be able to lead his team members from a place of respect and trust, other than using forms of punishment that create illicit fear and enmity. When you are an excellent leader, you possess the ability to get things done and delegated through others, by using every individual’s strengths and weaknesses to the advantage of the team. Being a successful leader, you have to create a motivated and inspired team rather than creating a submissive team. A motivated team will share with your mission and visions and will actively work, so as to help achieve that vision. To get the desired work done, a project manager should have great leadership skills and quantities.

2. Team building

As a manager, you will need to put together a group of people so as to bring a reality in line with your expectation as a leader. A team needs proactive work on team building so that it can be efficient and effective. Thus, this can be achieved by honestly and openly talking and discussing the expectation of everyone with their unique role. Through this, most team members will express and explain how they feel about the conflicts that arise while focusing on the problems and finding their solutions. With an efficient team building, there will be a great achievement for the organization since a lot of people would feel inspired and valued while working under the manager.

3.Communication

Communication is the most significant ingredient in the success of a project. A good manager needs to have proper communication skills during meetings, sharing the project status report to the stakeholders and management and while updating your team members with feedbacks.

Communication, or lack of it, can either make or break relationships in a project team. There are many interpersonal dynamics which shape and have an impact on an effective project team communication such as the style difference and the cultural differences between different people in the team.

4.Negotiation

Negotiation skills need to come effortlessly for the project manager. In most cases, as project manager, you will need to keep both parties satisfied with your decision. You will need to create a win- win situation so as to prevent the occurrences of fights and chaos. The more a manager listens to both parties and understands their wants and needs, the better he or she will find a mutually beneficial solution for everyone.

5.Conflict management

Whenever conflicts arise, there is a resulting fight, deterioration of relationships and stress. Turning conflicts into collaborative solving problems are one of the greatest experiences teams can have, as it seeks to address the validation of dissenting opinions and aims so as to make the situation better than it was.

The Interpersonal skills are thus significant for every project manager to achieve great height and success.