As a leader, how much of a project's success or failure can you influence? - SmartBrief

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As a leader, how much of a project’s success or failure can you influence?

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Leadership

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.

Last week, we asked: As a leader, how much of a project’s success or failure can you influence?

  • I can affect every aspect of a project, and I’m a big factor in its success or failure: 17.28%
  • I can affect many aspects of a project’s success, but some are out of my control: 62.3%
  • I can affect some aspects of a project’s success, but many are out of my control: 16.58%
  • I can’t affect most aspects of a project’s success or failure: 3.84%

We own our project results. Eighty percent of you know and believe that you, as a leader, have a big impact on project outcomes. For you, the challenge is stepping up to greater challenges and letting your team grow into bigger roles. If you have things under control, why not take a risk on someone and give them a chance to further develop? Hopefully you’re also having an impact outside the project scope by being a project leader rather than just a project manager. For those of you who lack control over aspects of your projects, see how you can expand your impact. Ask to take on more responsibility or simply take action where you see action is required. Initiative is almost always universally rewarded.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”