Stakeholder Engagement and Emotional Intelligence

In an ever-changing projects ecosystem, it has become increasingly important to redefine the future roles of grant professionals as frontline catalysts for grant project success. Good grants managers must aspire to be good project managers in their ways of working if projects are to be designed for success and implemented successfully. The call for a synchronized execution underscores the need for grant managers to cultivate and adapt new skill sets, exceeding traditional roles to emerge as multifaceted leaders. At any given time in a grant’s lifecycle, grant managers are interacting with internal or external stakeholders, and they must therefore unleash some project management skills to engage and manage those stakeholders. To do this successfully, they must apply emotional intelligence as a key ingredient to navigate and communicate as effective leaders in the grants space. These two pillars highlight part of a fusion dimension for project and grant management that will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of grant management practices.