Book excerpt: The number one cause of failure on the people side of project management stems from ineffective or inadequate leadership. Leading High Performance Projects explains how project managers can adopt the most appropriate style under a given set of circumstances, encourage greater teaming, become more effective decision-makers, reduce incidences of negative conflict and eliminate opportunities for 'negative energy' to permeate a project. Ralph L. Kliem, President of Practical Creative Solutions, is an accomplished author of hundreds of articles and 12 books primarily in project management.