A relevância do executive presence para o gerente de projetos

Abstract

The competencies that exist in people in project management positions can be categorized as technical or interpersonal competencies. Interpersonal skills allow a person in the project manager position to interact with other people in the project environment. Such competencies may be related to the project teams, their sponsors, or project stakeholders. The specialized literature points out that skills such as motivation and people's engagement can positively contribute to the project's performance. In this way, the person responsible for the relationship with people in the project environment can be personified in several roles, regardless of the adopted project management methodology, such as project manager, scrum master, and product owner. It is noteworthy that all these positions can benefit from specific skills to influence and align these people with the project objectives. In this context, Executive Presence can be considered a relevant competency to differentiate an individual from others, promoting influence over the people involved in the project, motivating, and engaging these people towards the project's objectives. Based on this situation in which a person's competence can promote positive results, this research presents a conceptual model, based on Executive Presence, to support the project manager in the relationship with the people involved in the project. Therefore, this research adopted a qualitative exploratory approach. In the first phase, a systematic literature review was carried out to identify the principal authors, definitions, and elements that make up the Executive Presence and the relationship of this competence with the people responsible for managing projects. The literature review found 21 elements that were empirically confronted by conducting 20 in-depth interviews with practitioners accountable for the performance of the project teams and for the relationship with sponsors and stakeholders who validated the relevance of Executive Presence in the project environment. Based on the results, this research presents a conceptual model of Executive Presence for the Project Manager. This research contributes to the academy by bringing the competence of Executive Presence closer to the project environment, exploring the gap in the literature of studies on this competence in this environment, extending the use scenarios of Executive Presence to the project environment, and proposing a definition for the Executive Presence. The contribution for practitioners is the presentation of a conceptual model to support the selection of individuals responsible for the relationship with project people more efficiently, developing training programs for the development of Executive Presence for the project manager, and improving project manager assessment processes. This study is part of the PPGP-UNINOVE Project Management research line, in the context of the

research project on Agile and Hybrid Projects, and the project financed by the CNPq Universal Notice.