Aloha! Fletch here again, happy to be back for another edition of the Leadership Toolbox. Last month, I revisited some of my first experiences with the drilling industry, and the frustrations of communicating water well issues and solutions to leaders that did not listen. This month, I would like to visit a basic question that often arises in project management training: What is project management? To clarify, this question came up in a mentoring session I led recently. Mentoring, by the way, is one of my favorite things and something I think good leaders should always look for opportunities to do.
Whenever someone poses generic questions like this, I like to look beyond the lens of what a dictionary or textbook might offer on the matter. The mechanics of managing a project are teachable. People can learn schedules, budgets and designs — all the tangible elements of project management. However, this question involves a combination of the tangible and intangible elements. You may hear people debate the difference between management and leadership. Management implies more passive oversight, and leadership a more active directing toward a goal. If we think about it logically, successful project management cannot exist without leadership.