Leadership and the dynamics of projects: Ray Levitt's insights on project leadership

Abstract

Projects operate in dynamic settings, with changing technologies, and they are themselves evolving forms of organizing. This paper contains insights from Ray Levitt, an operating partner at Blackhorn Ventures and an Emeritus Professor at Stanford, where he led the Global Project Center. It is an extracted and edited version of conversation on a panel discussion at the inaugural Project Leadership in a Changing World Symposium in 2021. The main parts unpack how leaders of complex projects, such as those found in civil engineering construction, face challenges in innovating, particularly in incorporating new technologies that are being developed by start-ups; and how the nature of leadership changes across different project stages and relates to notions of agile leadership. The conversation with Ray Levitt provides contributions to the debate on project leadership in a changing world, on 1) the convergence of technologies affecting project leadership; 2) the importance of success criteria; 3) the changing nature of project leadership through the lifecycle; 4) agile leadership, and 5) the political skills and sensitivities to get project started. These insights can be built on by used by project scholars interested in project leadership in a changing world. In the final section we discuss how they might provoke new research on the leadership and digital innovation in an age of AI and on temporal understandings of project leadership and its discontents in a changing world.