Leadership and Team Management
Leadership versus management
Management provides order - planning, monitoring, controlling. Leadership provides direction and influence - vision, motivation, building commitment. A project manager needs both, and must adapt style to the situation and the individual's competence and commitment (situational leadership: directing, coaching, supporting, delegating).
Teams
Tuckman's stages - forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning - describe team development. Storming is normal and productive if handled; it is a trap to treat conflict or challenge as failure. Belbin's team roles illustrate the balance of behaviours a team needs (coordinator, shaper, plant, implementer, monitor-evaluator, team worker, resource investigator, completer-finisher, specialist).
Motivation
Know the main models: Maslow's hierarchy; Herzberg's two-factor theory (pay and conditions are hygiene factors that prevent dissatisfaction but do not motivate - achievement, recognition and responsibility do); McClelland's needs for achievement, affiliation and power; Vroom's expectancy theory (motivation depends on expectancy, instrumentality and valence). Herberg's hygiene point is a favourite trap.
Conflict and influence
Thomas–Kilmann conflict modes: compete, collaborate, compromise, avoid, accommodate - collaboration is usually best for important issues, avoidance is legitimate for trivia. Emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skill) underpins stakeholder handling. Delegation requires clear authority, defined outcomes and support, not abdication.
Rule of thumb
Match style to the person and task: high direction for the new or unwilling, high support for the capable but demotivated, delegation for the experienced and committed.