All project managers need to be able to lead, but not all leaders need to be able to manage a project. This conundrum makes project management an ideal springboard into leadership.

If you can handle a high-pro-file, complex project such as the staging of the Olympic Games or the construction of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, then you are likely to be able to run a large corporation, says Dr Janet Smart, director of the BT Centre for Major Programme Management at Saïd Business School in Oxford.

“A programme manager needs to be able to combine project management and leadership skills. But do all leaders need programme management skills? No. It’s useful but not essential.” Successful programme managers (senior project managers who handle large complex projects or portfolios of projects) need to direct a diverse team of professionals, confidently manage lawyers and budgets and posses a well-honed set of soft skills, including the ability to communicate with the media and government, she says.

One problem is that large complex projects with budgets of more than £500 million are rare and take time to complete. This means that you are unlikely to experience many in a single career. “It needs to be taught and knowledge needs to be shared otherwise we are going to carry on making mistakes. There are plenty of places teaching project management, but when you go up to the level of hugely complex projects we are not doing enough,” she says.

Martin Barnes, president of the Association for Project Management, agrees that project management is becoming recognised as excellent training for leaders. One of the reasons is the ability to cope with risk and uncertainty, an attribute which means that project managers make good leaders in volatile markets, he says. “The management of change, which is what project managers excel at, is the most difficult thing you can do, so if you have done this in the middle of your career you are very well equipped to go into top management afterwards.”

Philip Diab, chairman of the board of the Project Management Institute, says that good project managers need to have three distinct skill sets: the ability to bring together and manage a diverse team; soft skills such as emotional intelligence; and the vision to make change happen. “Project management is an excellent breeding ground for future leaders because you are acting like a mini CEO on a project.”

But project managers who become chief executives should be aware that when a high-profile project goes wrong it is often the chief executive’s head that rolls.

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