KENNEDY TOROITICH KURGAT

HDEC007-1185

HEPM 3102: PROJECT LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNICATION

Discuss the Role of Project Leadership and Communication in Kenya

Project leadership and communication play key roles in managing projects in Kenya. The project

manager, team leader, sponsors, steering committee, and team members all have different roles

in the project. The project manager is the center of all these stakeholders and through effective

leadership and communication, he/she ensures the project is successful. Roles of leadership and

communication cut across all countries since every project requires effective leadership and

communication. Leadership support is considered one of the critical success factors in project

implementation, effective executive involvement can significantly improve project success.

Maintaining open, regular and accurate channels of communication with all levels of project

staff and stakeholders is vital to ensuring the effective implementation of capital expenditure

projects.

Leadership Roles in Project Success

Project management is a demanding task that requires effective leadership styles and traits for

overall success of the particular project. Team building, flexibility, communication, and effective

strategizing abilities are mandatory for effective project leadership. Therefore, it is clear that

leaders play a primary and key role in project management because their approach determines

the overall success or failure of any particular project. Project processes are significantly affected
by leadership and its role is increasing globally due to many global projects. The managerial

process requires several core traits that can lead to success in project management. These core

traits are being optimistic, being a skillful politician, using effective time management, having a

general business perspective, having high emotional intelligence, being proactive, having

personal integrity, and being a system thinker. Project managers are expected to have effective

management abilities to walk the talk. Attitudes, behavior, and leadership styles are key

attributes of a project manager that influence the success and behavior of their team members.

The importance of leadership is ensuring that the managers get work done by team members

effectively and efficiently. The project manager should have a clear vision, practical scheduling,

clarity in reason, and the ability to attract an efficient and talented team. Good leadership can be

modified and cultivated depending on the organizational culture to obtain the results. Leadership

focuses on vision, convincing and selling what and why, long term, being democratic, enables

roles, developing, challenges, innovative, motivation and inspiring trust, risk opportunities, and

on the top line. The leadership style should be innovative, flexible and sharing to bring about

project success. Also, project leaders should emphasize motivation and team building so that

divergent members can work as a team. A leader is expected to lead the team and stakeholders

during the planning phase through a finely tuned study so that they understand project needs. The

planning phase should be stressed to help the teams gain complete awareness of the

requirements. A project manager has a pivotal role to play in change management. A good

project leader should be able to anticipate the changes and solve them effectively. The leader

should be able to direct and steer the team members on the methods to utilize for change and to

cope with change to the project's advantage. As a leader, the most important roles are nurturing

creativity, giving credit and supporting the team in taking calculative risks to deliver project
success. The application of leadership and management in the project execution is usually

dependent on the type of project and the life cycle stage that the project is in. For projects which

are huge impact, large scale, complex and global in nature the standards to be achieved, the goals

and the deliverables are constrained by the time frame, budgets and the market dynamics. These

types of projects involve large and distributed project teams, comprising members from diverse

disciplines. Also the implementation is going to be multi-phased. In such a situation the project

success and business sustenance can be achieved only through an effective and smart leadership.

The leadership style should be flexible, sharing, and innovative so as to bring about the project

success. At the same time the leader should emphasize on team building and motivation so that

the divergent members can work together as a team.

Motivating and Inspiring: Leaders come up with a vision and communicate it continuously

throughout the organization and work with the team to achieve it. Leaders keep their team

enthusiastic in carrying out their work and focus on the project vision (Kumar 2009). Through

leadership, they can encourage employees to do their best to complete work with satisfaction

towards the project vision.

Negotiating and communicating: Leaders ensure that project stakeholders and team members

work effectively with one another. All parties have shared or opposed interests, and to work

together, these interests are compromised to reach a team decision (Kumar 2009). Project leaders

create a working environment where team members are open and honest in communicating with

each other, can communicate effectively with stakeholders, and understanding each team

member's communication style.

Listening and Influencing: One important trait of leaders is being active listeners. This ensures

that they consider and understand the team member's perspective before making team decisions

that will affect every employee (Kumar 2009). Leaders get employees and other stakeholders to

cooperate and collaborate towards working for a common goal.

Decision Making: A project leader is tasked with making critical decisions regarding the

project. Any process that has to be conducted or an action that has to be taken in any particular

angle of the project has to have the approval of the project leader as the decision maker of the

project.

Crafting solutions: Part of creating a positive working culture is empowering the team and the

wider stakeholder community to get involved in crafting solutions. That means removing

roadblocks so each team member can complete their tasks and input creative ideas without

having to worry that something is in the way. Empowering leaders also push decisions down the

hierarchy to the lowest possible level, letting experts make the choices about the solutions

needed to keep the project moving forward.

Conflict resolution: Conflict is inevitable in situations where you are introducing something

new or changing something. Effective leaders know how to harness conflict for good, as the best

solutions arise when ideas are challenged. Conflict can be positive for teams because it allows all

voices to be heard and differing views to be put forward – often that results in a better solution

and more effective project outcomes. However, leaders need to be armed with conflict resolution

strategies to ensure they can identify and tackle conflict proactively before it escalates into an

issue for the team. Another of the essential project manager core competencies is to have a range

of strategies for addressing conflict.

Employee training: A good leader should train his or her team so that everyone is able to

understand the project requirements and perform tasks according to specifications. If the

employee does not understand their job well, it may end up serving as a hindrance to the

execution of the project. This is where we see the importance of leadership in project

management, because the attitude of the leader will reflect a more positive and collaborative

attitude on the part of subordinates. Remember that a team is as good as its leader.

Roles of communication in project success

Communication is very important in project management in maintaining mutual understanding

and progress as the project unfolds. Leadership communication is classified into three namely;

core, managerial and corporate communication (Zulch 2014). Different skills are required for

effective communication in every framework. Communication is crucial in facilitating the

progress of the project and linking the stages. Poor communication can be classified as a risk the

may affect the likelihood of completing a project. A major concern in any project is the need for

information that has to be collected, produced, and be distributed. The form in which the

information is retrieved, stored and recorded determines greatly how it will be used and by

whom. Information flow should be planned to ensure the right information reaches the people

who need it. The key concerns when planning information flow are who needs information, how

do they need it, why do they need it, when do they need it, who can give it to them, what

information is needed, where is it needed, and what might hinder communication. The two main

areas of information needed are the plans and what happens for plan completion or revision.
Communication largely depends on leadership. Through effective communication, the risks are

minimized and success maximized. Effective project communication is important due to various

major reasons. These reasons are project planning and setting expectations, status updates and

timeline changes, and closeout and lessons learned. Effective communication at the initial stages

of the project will pay dividends throughout the project. To get work done, the team members

should have enough information about the project goal, deliverables, timelines, and expectations

of each participant. Project managers in collaboration with project management tools and

software should provide details on the format and timing of recurring meetings and steps to be

followed for the changes in scope. Communication breakdown occurs mostly during the middle

phases of the project as people become more immersed in their work. Decentralized teams or

large teams working in multiple continents and in different time zones becomes impossible to

gather. Therefore, it is important to use communication management tools to keep the teams on

the same page through the provision of essential information. As a project winds down, it is

important not to lose focus on communication. Project managers must review all initial project

requirements to ensure that they have been addressed. Communication should be continued even

after the work is done.

Due to the geographical and organizational diversity of Kenya, it is important to consider

different communication methods. Current technology provides project managers with easy ways

of communicating with the team members. During the planning stage, the communication

strategy is the key to influencing the success of a project. The communication method can either

be passive or active (Communication the Key to Successful Project Management 2020). The

active communication method is the communication used here and now. Examples of active
communications are stand-up presentations in person, telephone, Webinars, telephone

conference, video conference, and face to face. Passive communication is the method by which

recipients adopt their own time. Examples of passive methods are tabletop presentation, project

newsletter, website, blogs, intranet bulletin boards, email, webcast, and podcast. A mix of

passive and active methods should be used to complement each other. One of the biggest factors

affecting effective communication is active listening (Communication the Key to Successful

Project Management 2020). Body language such as eye to eye contact demonstrates whether one

is listening attentively.

Effective communication in project management can be improved in several ways. The first way

through paying attention to peoples' needs. The second way is through noticing signs, taking

care, and listening actively (Martin 2006). The third way is through the use of appropriate

communication ways. The fourth way is through taking time to ensure that the message has been

understood. The fifth way is by choosing the place and time carefully when confidential

information is shared or when difficult communication is expected. The project manager is

expected to communicate expectations and manage outcomes (Anantatmula 2010). Top

communication skills in project management also include listening, emphasizing efficiency over

speed, asking questions, respecting team, and keeping everyone in the loop (Bruce 2015). Lastly

is through paying attention to feedback and ensuring that feedback is given.

The following are more elaborate roles of communication:

Relaying information: A project manager should ensure that the stakeholders and team

members are informed of their responsibilities and roles. Other information that should be

relayed is the time constraints that may hinder the accomplishing of the task on time. Besides,

the project details and progress should be communicated by the project manager to the

stakeholders. Any information that is used in a project should be of high quality. Good

information should be accurate, complete, clear, relevant, timely, and appropriate (Martin 2006).

Relaying of information should also ensure that confidentiality is kept where guidelines say so.

Relaying information is one part of the communication process and those who receive it will

react and respond to it in some way.

Receiving of information: Before a project manager relays information, he/she must access the

information for a given project first. The information that is needed by the stakeholders at any

given time is time constraints, customer needs, plans, risks, and objectives (The Importance of

Communication 2020). The information that has been gathered and stored must be kept secure.

Confidentiality should be maintained allowing only those who need to know and have the

authority to access data only. The integrity of the data should be maintained to ensure it is

accurate and complete. The received information should be available when needed by those in

authority. Adherence to a system of focused and regular communication can prevent delays and

misunderstandings that can lead to the failure of any project.

Situational changes: All projects are fluid and the project leaders should prepare for the

problems that they may face from the beginning to the completion of a project. For effective

communication throughout the project and within teams, the communication plan should be

developed from the planning stage. This plan will contain different types of communication
required during the specific meeting, frequency of communication, who needs to be

communicated with, and the needs to be communicated.

Discussing problems: The project problems are discussed using different methods such as the

fishbone diagram that solves the causes of every challenge (The Importance of Communication

2020). Therefore, the importance of communication in project management is not debatable. The

process of communication occurs in different forms. Other ways of discussing the topics are

comics, pie charts, bar/linear graphs, and infographics (The Importance of Communication

2020). Different forms of communicating one’s message are available and more knowledge

should be developed for effective communication skills.

Bridging the language gap: In project management, the language gap lies in the distance that

obstructs the understanding of business benefits. The importance of project communication is

raised when the challenges of using language to deliver unclear information that is filled with the

project management jargon (The Importance of Communication 2020). The elements of

communication that are crucial are being able to speak, talk and be listened to through

interaction. In project management, there are additional needs for the teams to understand the

long-term goal of the business to be able to make it perfect through contributing to it. The

importance of communication in any project is to ensure effective communication for the

project's success.
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