A project manager isn’t just a position; there is a person behind this post. Apart from various soft and hard skills, the personal characteristics of a project manager play a key role in their success.

The following are some vital personality traits that’ll help you become successful as a project manager.

1. Commitment to Deliver Results

To become a project manager, you need to be committed to your work, regardless of its nature. This quality is essential if you want to experience success. Giving up is never an option for a project manager. You should stick to the project in both fair and foul situations.

As the project leader, a manager shouldn’t get diverted from their objectives, no matter how many obstacles they face. Also, remember that your actions should speak for the commitment you have to the project.

You should learn more about the Objectives & Key Results method for setting goals and achieving them scientifically. This method offloads extra burden from your mind so that you can do the technical work smoothly. Todoist is an easy-to-use OKR software for goals and objective management.

2. Proactive in Accepting Project Challenges

Some people in every team love to take the initiative instead of waiting for others to instruct them. These are the proactive people, and they are the best contenders to become project managers. Every project needs more proactive people in the team, especially for the post of its manager.

A proactive project manager will carefully assess the tasks during all stages of a project. You should be able to identify the risk factors and take necessary measures to prevent these from happening.

You should be proactive in asking the client for collaborative project planning well before continuing with the project tasks. Apps like Google Jamboard or Freehand are visual collaboration tools that allow you to plan projects like content development, website/app development, creative video production, etc.

3. Skilled in Solving Problems

Do you have a knack for solving problems? You can become a reputed project manager by utilizing this personal quality. Don’t be surprised when we tell you that all successful project managers are also efficient problem solvers.

Problems could come in any form like unavailability of resources, faulty project status reports, security breaches in intellectual asset management, etc. You need to know your project management tool inside out to resolve such issues.

Project management software like Smartsheet helps you with secure content management. It also helps you to manage a database of human resources with their skills and roles. If a resource is absent to complete a priority task, you can quickly find out an alternative resource and delegate the task.

4. Leadership and People Management Skills

Leadership is a quality not found in everyone. It makes a person capable of leading from the front. The responsibility of a project manager is to lead a team toward timely and successful project completion. So, they should also know how to guide a team towards achievements.

Some projects are lengthy, and their tasks can be repetitive. These can demotivate the team members and cause frustration in them.

You can use Prezi to create meaningful presentations about your project progress, bottlenecks, issue resolution, team performance, etc., and deliver those to your team in regular intervals. You can also plan Zoom meetings with team members to host team-building activities, question and answer sessions, or brainstorming on a project roadblock.

The more you interact with your team, they'll feel that they're valued. Interaction with the mass is an important skill that helps you grow people management and leadership traits.

5. Open to Feedback and Criticism

Criticism is an inseparable part of every project. No matter how much effort you put into a project, criticism is bound to come from your clients, colleagues, or supervisors. To shine as a project manager, you should be able to take the heat.

Being able to handle criticism is a crucial characteristic of a project manager. You shouldn’t get offended or defensive when someone criticizes you. It’ll not help you improve the situation. Instead, take them professionally and respond constructively. Thus, you can stop the situation from getting worse.

6. Decisive in Decision-Making

Since the project manager is responsible for making crucial decisions, decisiveness is a must-have quality for them. This personal trait enables you to make timely and well-informed decisions.

Though decisiveness is a less-talked-about quality, it’s impossible to implement strategies and achieve your goals without a being a fast-acting project manager.

Often, you need to make strict decisions, even if they may offend some of your colleagues. Since the project's success is your sole objective, you can move forward with your choices confidently.

7. Flexibility That Benefits Project Goals

Flexibility is a personality trait many modern-day executives lack. But if you’re to be successful as a project manager, you must have this quality. No risk management plan is foolproof. Hence, setbacks and unannounced delays are a reality.

Therefore, a project manager should be as flexible as possible to make adjustments whenever necessary.

The project might require you to work overtime or attend meetings with clients during odd hours. You may need to work on task delegation if some members become sick or unavailable. A project manager, flexible by nature, can handle all this without trouble.

8. Honesty to Avoid Miscommunication

Sometimes, things don’t go as expected. Then, the project manager may convey some unpleasant news to the clients and teammates. It's the moment when the honesty of the project manager becomes vital.

An honest person will directly share the feedback or status report of a project to anyone involved. Hence, there’ll be no chance of miscommunication.

An honest project manager will be straightforward in creating a fair policy for the team. Besides, when teammates know about your honesty, they can open up to you about the issues they face.

If you're using Asana for project management, you can use its Universal Reporting feature to create project report dashboards. Share the interactive dashboard with the project owner or client to keep them updated about the nuts and bolts of the project.

9. A Vision for the Future Roadmap

Anyone who wants to reach the pinnacle of success in their profession should be a visionary. Vision allows you to understand the context and look ahead to visualize success. Similarly, a project manager should also possess this quality to be able to see what’s coming.

As they lead a project, their vision helps them to predict the future. It also helps you to influence all the team members to move in the right direction. A visionary project manager can also successfully offer a roadmap to the clients to get their approval.

10. Be Positive in Unfavorable Situations

Are you someone who sees a silver lining in everything, even in something that others find to be unpleasant and unimpressive? You can consider yourself as a contender for the post of project manager.

The power of positivity improves your confidence. It also enables you to become a problem-solver and expert decision-maker. By combining it with vision and commitment, you can surely pull off some good results even in an unfavorable situation.

As a positive person, you have to maintain a positive attitude and cool mindset even while facing a daunting challenge.

Manage Projects With Efficiency

Personal qualities often determine your success in your professional life. If you want to be an achiever as a project manager, you should have discussed features.

Also, punctuality and time management are crucial attributes of a project manager to avoid project delays.