At the recent PM Forum in Hannover, Germany, I attended a presentation on how to recognise a successful project manager. The presenter finished by recommending that whoever didn’t meet the profile identified by his research should think seriously about geting another job. Instead, I thought about my own list of characteristics that a successful project manager or other leader might need. I’ve reduced to the minimum and come up with three:
- the ability to reflect is essential to sift through and learn from experience, both what is working well and what could be improved.
- willingness to learn new approaches and methods, in order to expand and improve one’s leadership repertoire, and
- make a decision to take responsibility for what one does or neglects to do.
Any additions to or deletions from this short list?