Introduction
In the modern organizational environment, the Shaper faces diverse challenges caused by internal and external causes and economic changes. The purpose of modern project management is to provide an organization with a framework in which decisions can be made which will have an impact on the organization. A conscious effort to systematize the effort and to manage its evolution is preferable to an unmanaged and haphazard evolution. Intrapersonal skills of the Shaper are those that come from within and help one to be self-motivated, have a passion in whatever one does, persevere a lot, and have courage while interpersonal skills are those skills that one needs so that they can be able to work with others effectively. These skills include the power to cooperate with others, communicate effectively and manage work and stress. Interpersonal skills are one the abilities to start, work on and maintain relationships while people with intrapersonal skills depend on ones’ attitude especially towards authority.
The Shaper and the Project
In every project, the Shaper plays the important role of coordinator and manager. Most of the managers have intrapersonal skills and often want to be compliant with authority. The Shaper’s leadership to requires intrapersonal skills since it focuses on people’s needs and needs a lot of innovation. interpersonal skills need someone to be focused and accommodate others’ expectations while in intrapersonal skills one has to focus personally, be accountable and be aware of oneself while embracing core values. But intrapersonal skills are the least malleable when compared with interpersonal skills. However, it is easy to instill interpersonal skills into people than intrapersonal skills which often require a lot of emotional intelligence (Cole, 2005). People can be taught to be receptive to other’s feelings, sharing, paying attention to others while listening and responding. This can help in the appreciation of others and can lead to understanding and incorporating them into our personal feelings and thoughts (Bass 2000). The Shaper of a project is a perceptive person who learns fast what motivates and gives morale to others while they try to avoid any management practice that will upset and alienate the rest of the staff. The personal example of Bill Gates as a Shaper of many projects shows that perceptive people rely on intuition and understanding to help others. These people for instance are great managers who try to use their power to control projects. They have low regard for motivation and morale while practicing the highest point of capitalism and trying to achieve self-interest (Armandi et al 2003).
Although the Shaper’s leadership is a special feature of any good project, some leaders are not in a position to have the power that a manager has while a manager depends on his position so that he can have power over the people. People have often followed their managers while they commit themselves wholly to their leaders’ sources of special power of leaders comes from selflessly assisting others, supporting people in private, appraising others when they do well, involving the ideas and opinions of other people, sharing skills and experience with other workmates and targeting a win-win outcome while a manager uses his position’s power to achieve the aims of an organization (Hoyle and Wilmore 2002). The Shaper will allocate resources in accordance with business priority and give instructions for specific tasks because of his senior job position. The Shaper will often use the performance appraisal system so that he can award the best and punish the poor performers. The Shaper will get to the people on the criteria of priority and need and informs them strictly on issues affecting their lives (Boehnke and Bontis, 2003).
Leadership
The Shaper’s leadership depends on individual power which emanates from the Capability to build up mutually satisfying and strong relationships. Leadership is dependent on good, positive special characteristics, interpersonal skills, and encouraging the behavior. The major basis of leadership has always been the power to influence people (Barker, 2001). “Leadership processes are directed at defining, establishing, identifying, or translating this direction for their followers and facilitating or enabling the organizational processes that should result in the achievement of this purpose” (Zaccaro and Klimoski, 2001: 6-7 cited Armandi et al 2003, p. 54). This power dictates the strength of any leadership. In leadership, one has to be aware of the choices of people so that he can get their commitment. Leaders who have positive influence identify this and adjust their conduct so that they can influence the development of relations with people hence inspiring people. This they do by trying to capture the attention and dedication and navigating them towards accommodating the Shaper’s requirements and goals through personal opinion while a manager is personally committed to an organization. Leadership relies on inspiring while management relies on controlling the people (Boyatzis and McKee, 2005).
Duties and Responsibilities
The Shaper mobilizes and assigns resources; they guarantee the continuing vitality of the staff; they generate and maintain appropriate procedures. The Shaper manages, delegates, and coordinates resources, and provides a system of incentives to encourage and support productive behavior. Managers and leaders establish reporting systems, perform evaluations, and allocate accountability. Common to both managers and leaders is the focus on the outcomes they produce, which are based on the goals they pursue. The Shaper calls for the kind of attempt, restraint, drive, and discipline that result in effective performance. The traditional definitions of management and leadership have concentrated on and described the management process. What a manager or leader does is vital, but descriptions do not address the function or purpose of management. The personal example of Anita Roddick shows that the principle of management is to produce positive outcomes. Leadership is more than leading employees. Indeed, it has many more components. Leadership is also routine administration, supervision, and knowledge of procedures, rules, and set of laws; for example, it requires cooperation techniques, cost control, and legal responsibilities (Harvey, 2001).
Communication
In order to create a healthy organization, the Shaper should establish clear goals and principles of communication and ethical standards. In a project, setting goals establish the pathway to positive results. Deciding what it is that you want to do is the goal-setting stage, doing it in the process, and accomplishing goals is the outcome or result. The manager’s responsibility is to produce positive results. Setting clear, challenging goals and then doing what is necessary to accomplish them is the daily process. Success will be measured by the degree to which a goal is accomplished, but alas, life is not this simple (Cole, 2005). Remember that managerial performance is not judged entirely in terms of success or failure. Rather, performance is measured in terms of progress in relation to the goal. For the Shaper, the focus is on lessons learned, and learning is a core value. In this sense, success becomes a journey, rather than a destination (Wofford and Whittington 2001). There is always room for mistakes and even failure, but there is never room for complacency or low standards. Managers can, and should, work toward positive results. In this case, the role and responsibility of leaders are to develop moral and ethical; principles for the organization, while the task of managers is to introduce these principles into practice and control their fulfillment. Results are not the only thing, and the ends do- not justify all means. There are ethical limits. Criteria beyond effectiveness are needed. Goals must be just, and there must be a moral responsibility to do what is right. Ethical conduct is a key ingredient of positive results and success. Integrity suffers when managers demand or expect from their subordinates an exaggerated personal loyalty to mission–the kind of sentiment that makes people lie or cheat. An extreme emphasis on performance as a criterion of success may foster an atmosphere of raw striving that results in brutality, be it profit, competition, status, money, or whatever. When results become an end in themselves, the manager has overstepped the bounds of human dignity–the moderator is integrity. Once the Shaper is judged, or even perceived, as lacking integrity, he or she is in trouble. When circumstances change and new means are called for, it often turns out that the old ones have become sacrosanct; the means have become ends in themselves–perhaps they are no longer effective, but they are enshrined. Means and ends, processes, and goals must be in alignment in order to attain positive results (Harvey, 2001).
Leadership is based on managerial principles and goals but it involves the personality and charisma of a person. The Shaper can work toward positive results. In this case, the role and responsibility of these managers are to develop moral and ethical; principles for the organization, while the task of managers is to introduce these principles into practice and control their fulfillment. Results are not the only thing, and the ends do- not justify all means. There are ethical limits. Criteria beyond effectiveness are needed. The strategic aims must be just, and there must be a moral responsibility to do what is right. Moral and ethical behavior patterns are a key element of positive results and success (Baruch, 1998). The example of Mark Zuckerberg, a founder of Facebook, shows that the shaper’s philosophy is a way of thinking about the corporate activity; a frame of mind; an attitude. It recognizes the primacy of consumers and customers as they influence all business operations. It starts with the company’s chief executive, who must recognize that lacking markets for the company’s products and lacking customer wants and needs, no business can exist. Modern project management covers the application of management techniques in the utilization of marketing resources. It is concerned with the responsibility for planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling marketing activities. It achieves its aims by establishing marketing objectives, policies, plans, programs, and standards, allocating marketing resources, and evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities (Charan et al 2001).
Conclusion
In sum, an important part of the Shaper’s role is communication and understanding of progression and procedures, but a new definition should focus on the results to be achieved. The Shaper’s success is measured by achievement, not by the process used to accomplish the results. Based on this results-oriented philosophy of management, the new definition of management focuses on the outcome. For leadership, setting goals sets up the pathway to positive results. Deciding what it is that you want to do is the goal-setting stage, doing it in the process, and accomplishing goals is the outcome or result. The manager’s responsibility is to produce positive results. Setting clear, challenging goals and then doing what is necessary to accomplish them is the daily process.
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