Organized Change

My study of leadership

There are three things I have come to learn from studying leadership over the last fifteen years.

First, there is a right way to lead and a wrong way to lead—most of us lead wrongly.

The reason most people lead wrongly is threefold:
One, it’s easy; It takes a lot of effort to lead others (and yourself) in the right manner. To lead others in the right manner, you will face challenges on your ethics, values, principles, having the right facts to make the right decisions, fear of risks and making mistakes. It’s easier to “go with the flow.”

Two, leaders are lazy; To lead others effectively requires more than just making the right decisions—it requires a high degree of self-awareness that you may not know everything about the situation. Leaders often have to make quick decision, but not always. I have come to value different perspectives and improved my ability reflect (think deeply) about making decisions.

Three, leaders don’t know how to lead. This is not to say you should study leadership from the scholars, but it does mean you should become an observer of good leadership. You cannot be trained in leadership but you can learn leadership. To learn leadership requires observation (observing the actions of good and bad leaders) and reflection (thinking deeply as to why they did what they did).

The second thing I have learned is leaders have the power—whatever they say goes.

That may be true in most cases, but I can influence others. Power comes in many forms. The one form of power that is most often displayed is positional power. “I’m the boss; it’s my way or the highway.” You can develop your ability to influence by cultivating your expert power. Expert power comes in many forms. Deeply understanding the technical aspects of a subject is a form of expert power. This type of expert power is limiting because you can’t know everything about everything. A better form of expert power is derived from becoming a subject matter expert on leadership because leadership is transferable to any situation.

The third thing I have learned is organizational culture wins. A good leader of one cannot overcome the bad leadership of the many.

Being a “leader of one” is difficult when so many others around you don’t care. You will come to the point in your leadership development that will test your resolve. You will reach a fork in the road, a deciding moment or a turning point in life when a major choice is required. In my life, my choice was how I wanted to lead others. Do I do it the right way or the wrong way? What I have now come to learn is to appreciate others who can lead the right way. The one person I know who leads the right way and still maintains her values and principles is my wife, Diana. She has figured out how to lead others within the “political” environment that most people have to work in. She leads quietly.

Thoughts to ponder about leaders:
• A leader needs to spend time thinking about the future, but yet be accountable for today
• Leaders are learners
• Practice open communication and structured decision-making
• You cannot be authentic imitating somebody else
• The most important capability for leaders to develop is self-awareness
• Great leaders typically go through a crucible, a transformational experience in becoming a leader
• Learn from others

Steve

Not just any leadership, but project leadership

In our posting “Whittling down the subject matter,” Diana stated that she will be looking at the soft skills of project management for her doctoral studies. She specifically said she wanted to look into, “not just any leadership, but project leadership.” I love that! It begins to crystallize the type of focus we needs as researchers and hopefully, you need as readers in what we are trying to contribute.

For the past year we have been studying “Leadership” with a capital “L.” We have read on the different leadership styles, theories, and traits. Leadership, a single word with many ambiguous definitions but, project leadership begins to have meaning for us. When you hear or read about leadership, you will invariably hear or read about creating a vision. I like visions. I think they are a necessity in establishing what you want to do for your project (as in a project leader), your organization (as in a business leader), or your life (as your own leader).

What peeves us is Leadership, with a capital “L,” usually stops at the end of the vision. It leaves a void on how the vision is to be implemented. That’s where project leadership comes into play. Project leaders (project managers) can execute a plan better than anyone. It is the hallmark of our profession. So the term, project leader, resonates with us because we can get things done.

But, one of the things we don’t do well as project management profession is the vision thing. Too much left-brain and not enough right. Either, Leaders with a capital “L,” need to have more of the skill sets of project management or project leaders need to learn about this vision thing. Who manages the gap between vision and execution? That is where we see, as project leaders, we need to become proficient at “innovative thinking.”

Now, what does “innovative thinking” mean? Stay tune for another posting.

Steve & Diana