The House of PMO launched the sixth Inside PMO Report today. The annual report focuses on a specific area of PMO and this year that focus is PMO Leadership.
The theme was chosen because although there is a lot of leadership based frameworks and insights widely available, there is nothing which specifically focuses on leadership in relation to PMOs.
We wanted to understand more about leadership responsibilities for those leading PMO functions in organisations today – and the Inside PMO Report is based on the real experiences of PMO Managers and Directors working today.
We also wanted to understand if there was anything unique about leadership and PMOs. The report highlights that leadership is not just something PMO Managers and Director do – the PMO itself as a function has a leadershop role to play in the organisation, as do the people that work within a PMO too.
The main conclusions are:
- From all the theories available on leadership, the PMO Managers/Directors embrace the authentic and servant leadership models the most.
- Leaders in PMO are responsible for setting the vision and to unite the team in striving to achieve the vision.
- PMO leaders spent a lot of time supporting, nuturing, empowering and building a sense of community with their teams. Emotional intelligence is key.
- Leading a PMO often means that the leader is also part of the leadership team in the organisation – they have to find the balance between working with senior executives and delivery leads. The challenge comes from being a supporter, enabler, encourager as well as providing objective assurance.
- The PMO itself is also providing a leadership role utilising classic leadership skills in the work it does and the services it provides, such as strategic planning, developing others, coaching, being a critical friend, building communities, instilling confidence, leading by example and utilising best practice.
- With the PMO performing a leadership role, the people within the team also actively engage in both leading and following. It doesn’t matter what the level of position that team member is in, they are using leadership skills in their day-to-day work.
- Reflective practice is one of the ways PMO leaders continue to get better at their leadership role – as is development based on feedback and learning from challenging situations.
- New hybrid ways of working are testing the leadership skills of PMO Managers / Directors and the resilience skills of the team. New sets of ground rules and acceptable behaviours, with the teams input and commitment are being developed and matured over time.
>> The report is available to download and read (free login required)
