The Reluctant Workers - Essay Example

Leadership skills were just as important as the project manager would have to present himself as the role model for his employees and always be in high spirits to uphold the confidence of his team and motivate it sufficiently towards the project’s goal (Kerzner, 2009). Finally, organization skills were equally important in this case as the project manager would be required to possess a deep understanding of the organization and its culture, its structure as well as the way of working (Kerzner, 2009).

This would enable the project manager to understand the psychology of his teammates and tackle them accordingly. Unlike other skills, organization skills are particularly useful during formation and startup of a project. The program manager is often required to integrate workers from various departments for the development of cross-functional teams when organizing work teams. These teams need to be provided with sound leadership that ensures team cohesion and provides a sense of unified direction.

Since the team includes people from various departments, conflict of interest is highly likely. . II. Tim Aston’s skills and effectiveness As mentioned in the first part, the first skill at play was that of team building; Tim was unable to have people voice their concerns to him and was unable to ensure open communication on the part of his team members which is the building block of team building skills. He lacked the ability to motivate his employees; hence, he lacked strong interpersonal skills.

Furthermore, he was unable to develop a relationship with his subordinates that resulted in greater friction between him and the 40-year old employees. He wasn’t effective in getting people shun their departmental interests for the greater good of the project. The second skill was that of leadership; Tim continually faced the problem of getting his team united to work towards one direction- that of executing the project. He was unable to unify his team mates towards a single goal- that of project management.

Various leadership traits have been identified by theorists including charisma, assertiveness, task competence, decisiveness (Northouse, 2009). His workers wouldn’t stay back beyond 4:30 for fear of missing the car pool. This represented Tim’s failure to pursue individuals to sacrifice their personal welfare for organizational goals. Tim lacked the personality traits of charisma and assertiveness to motivate and convince the employees to work rather than leave the office. Finally, Tim lacked adequate organizational skills; he was unable to organize the people towards project management.

It seemed that each individual was adamant at pursuing his/her individual goals, thus, Tim lacked the skill to organize people in a team. He also lacked a thorough