If your business is looking to hire project managers, you need to hire high-quality employees. The things that they do are going to impact more than their own production. They are going to be in charge of many other employees. Having a poor manager can mean that you get low production levels from all of those employees, so it has this sort of ripple effect that moves out through the rest of your organization. To find the best people for the job, look for these qualities:
Organizational Skills
A disorganized manager means that no one ever really knows what is happening. Remember that the manager’s job is to make sure that everyone else is working hard and accomplishing what they need to. If the manager is unorganized, people may end up wasting time and just sitting around, multiple employees may end up working on the same tasks, or some aspects of each project may just not get done in time at all.
Listening Skills
The manager at your business also needs to be able to listen to the employees who are part of the team. A good manager wants to hear from these people, to learn what they think of certain things or what they would do differently. This is the best way to set the team up for success and to show the employees that they are important. A manager should not just charge ahead, doing everything his own way and refusing to listen to anyone else.
An Eye for Talent
The manager also needs to be able to see what each of the employees can do best. Someone might have excellent people skills but not be very organized, for instance. This person would be better used to communicate with the client or the customer, rather than tracking the progress of the group. All employees have things that they do well and things that they cannot do well. The manager has to figure out what those things are and make sure that the employees fit the right role within the business.
The Ability to Diffuse Tension
There is going to be tension between the team members at times; this is true for any business, in any industry. People are not always going to get along. The project manager may not be able to prevent this entirely, but they need to be able to alleviate the tension and get everyone working in a productive fashion once again. They also need to be able to sense when tension is building toward a possible problem between employees so that they can take steps to make sure that it never gets to that point.
Leadership
Above all else, the project manager needs to be able to lead. He or she has to take the employees and drive them from the project’s origination to the final results. The manager needs to be able to identify what influences each employee – things like setting goals might work for one, whereas things like offering rewards will be better for another; still others may respond best when they know that they will negatively impact their careers by not working hard – and then he or she can use those things to lead the group as a whole.
Finding the Right Manager
If you look for someone who has all of these qualities, you will be able to get a project manager who will help your business be successful. They will be able to lead effectively and keep the team functioning at a high level. This is the type of manager you want for all levels of your company.
About the Author: Joshua Turner is a writer who creates informative articles in relation to business. In this article, he describes qualities of project managers and aims to encourage further study with a masters degree project management online.
