Power of a PM

To Manage a project, project Manager should have power., The PM’a Power can be categorized as follows;

· Formal authority resulting from an official capacity which is empowered to issue orders.

· Reward and/or penalty power resulting from his/her capacity to dispense directly or indirectly valued organization rewards or penalties.

· Expert power when the project manager is perceived as possessing special knowledge or expertise for the job.

· Attractive power because the project manager has a personality or other characteristics to convince others.

· Referential power when Project Manager has support from a specific senior Manager., to use his powers to get work done from the others.

However its not recommended to use Referential Power (Ex: Because the CEO personally requested me to get this task done by today, you have to do it)and Penalty Power(Ex: if you do not complete this task before end of today, you cannot get your week end off) in Managing projects. Its always better to use the Expert Power., By using expert power you can convince others reasonably and easily, Attractive power is a must for a PM., as Pming includes lots of negotiations with all the stakeholders of the project.