Leading a Purchasing Project in Manaus, Brazil (Mini-Case Study: 8.1)

Q. What can you learn from this incident in terms of leadership and motivation in international projects?  

In this case, we can learn that managing a successful project is more than schedules and paperwork. As it requires the ability to apply strong interpersonal management skills effectively in the working environment and in different roles.  Also, an effective project manager (Leader) shall have a vision of where to go and what to do, and the ability to achieve it. Hence, to motivate people, leaders should enable people to feel that they have a real piece in the project, and empower them to experience the vision on their own. By offering them opportunities into creating their own vision.


In international projects, the situation is somehow different. Why? Because leaders here must be able to influence and motivate a member of a different cultural group toward an achievement of a valued outcome through shared knowledge and meaningful systems meeting their cultural difference. Here, the difference between simple leadership and cultural leadership is that leaders need to understand the implications of this difference and to integrate these differences into the motivation process.