Brilliant Project Leader: What the Best Project Leaders Know, Do and Say to Get Results, Every Time (Brilliant Business) [Paperback]

Highly readable with a great voice and sentiment - PMO's and PPM's will make this required reading because Mike has assembled a career's worth of project leadership lessons and gives them away (e.g. purpose and strategy plus tactics you can use right now).

Some PM's (and some executives) approach project work like it's just a process with inputs and outputs, and if the rest of the folks would just get it (respect the logic, memorization and 1's and 0's) then it would all go smoothly all the time. But it doesn't; it's not that simple. There are two major sources of variation in every project - the people and the business. Both present dynamic forces churning the water around your ship (project). Mike's book deals with the former, leading people effectively through a project - and that's enough because projects are about working with cats - err I mean people.

Do you play well with others?
Can you get others to play with you?
Can you get them to play well with each other? Even when you aren't around?
When you return do you still have a team and progress to measure, or just a mess to fix?

It takes a leader - not a machine or process expert. The best PM's are actually Project Leaders and they make it look easy. The rest churn and burn teams up, go through the motions, or require another to lead.

Mike gets it and he gives it all away freely (or almost free) in his new book Brilliant Project Leader.

He's right - there are managers, and then there are leaders. His new book is loaded with gems for young and experienced project managers, as well as accidental PM's, would-be leaders, and accidental leaders (So this is your project. Oh - you just got volunteered by so-and-so. Sorry but saying you just got thrown into the mix, doesn't mean it's not yours. It may make you feel better, but you still own it - ready or not).

If it were easy - they wouldn't need us; a machine could do it. Thankfully we are needed and valued - especially those that can lead.

Facilitating projects and programs is much the same everywhere. Whether you do it for your own business, another entrepreneur or an established enterprise (Fortune 100, Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 clients, government or military) - running successful projects largely comes down to managing people, building a team and leading them effectively.

A leader will build and guide a team through forming, storming, norming to get them to the all important performing stage, i.e. the productive stage where work gets done and done right with less effort collaboratively.

Mike teaches PM's how to lead and further conveys how project choices and leadership style make or break a PM's career. There are gems that get only a blurb because others command checklists and pages of valuable, situational lessons and insights. Read it carefully - because even the basics Mike mentions casually actually are hard lessons learned and deserving of entire presentations to drive the value of each point home. Even better for PM's everywhere is that Mike's book frames it all in the most relevant context dear to all of us - project delivery.

Read this one, practice what you learn - and you'll get a jump start on a fantastic career and a portfolio of successful projects under your belt.

Mike believes that "in tough times, project management is not enough. People get scared and uncertain and need leadership to keep them working effectively".

While there is a book called Brilliant Project Management, its focus is primarily on project management basics. Brilliant Project Leader focuses more on the human side of project management recognizing that systems, processes and procedures and even to some extent methodologies, while essential, are not sufficient to deliver successful projects.

I found this book packed with leadership tools and insight that have clearly been proven in the real world and are clearly informed by research from various fields such as psychology, social science and our understanding of how the brain works.

The book provides essential leadership skills for each stage of the project which is something that I have find unique. Mike dedicates the last section to leadership skills in tough times. The tools and insights here will help project managers cut through the uncertainty and confusion that they often experience on complex and challenging projects.

Some of the highlights of the book:
* Mike's first rule of teams: You get the team you deserve
* The 4 essential components for leading project teams: The individual, the plan, the team, and the communication
* Three key leadership skills for the definition stage: Managing upward, stakeholder management, and negotiation
* The FARB Process for structuring arguments during negotiations
* The "Jiminy Cricket Effect" in securing commitment from project team members.
* The wrong way and the right way in dealing with requests for change
* Effective way to communicate bad news and setbacks
* Effective way of having the conversation about feedback with your project team members
* The structure of resistance
* The importance of timing to being an effective leader
* The Drama Triangle and leadership in tough times
* The SCOPE process: the Five step process for mentally taking control of bad situations

I highly recommend Brilliant Project Leader: What the best project leaders know do and say to get results every time.