Preventing Project Failure

Lesson 1 from the Colin Powell leadership series is pretty straight forward. If you are doing a good job as a leader, you will piss people off. It’s inevitable. There are two key points here:

Responsible leadership shakes people out of their comfort zone

The accomplishment of the mission is important than your personal popularity as a leader

Responsible leadership shakes people out of their comfort zone Powell’s not advocating heavy handed, ‘you will do it my way’ type of leadership. Quite the opposite actually. Look at what the characteristics of ‘Responsible’ leadership means to him.

Set a clear disruptive agenda

Stick to it

Invite everyone to participate

Give them considerable opportunity to shape and develop it

Provide people with tools and resources to succeed

Be open and collaborative

Hold people fully accountable for new results

Reward accordingly

Responsible leadership is collaborative leadership. It’s allowing the healthy exchange of ideas, and assuming that people will do their best with proper tools. It’s like a bargain. You as the leader invest confidence, respect, and the right tools in people. You expect great things from the team, and you recognize outstanding work. And the team, in return, performs excellently.

Ironically, Responsible leadership also creates waves of stress, especially in situations where people have gotten comfortable with non-performance. Powell is saying, embrace the idea of disruption. In fact, make sure that your agenda is ‘disruptive’ and that consider that if you aren’t pissing people off, the agenda may not be disruptive enough!

The accomplishment of the mission is more important than your personal popularity as a leader Every project comes with tough decisions. Dealing with team members who may not be pulling their weight, stakeholders with whom you have to be brutally honest, and communication blockages and barriers that have to be addressed, is not easy. And there’s this fine line between being able to motivate the team but also being disciplined enough to make the hard calls.

And in fact, Powell says, if you don’t make the hard calls, you risk losing the team anyway. And that’s because people recognize when a leader is not leading, not addressing the hard issues, not dealing with team problems and eventually, not dealing means that you are no longer leading.

My Take Lesson 1 is really an approach to leadership. I know that the Project Managers I’ve looked up to in the past have been just this type of leader; someone who is mission focused, doesn’t take sides, is approachable and yet clear and specific about their expectations of success. And they’ve been the type of people who don’t shirk in the face of anger…in fact they lead the anger. Then get right in it, without getting bent out of shape themselves, and work through the anger, almost as if they expected it.

The Project Managers I haven’t respected have been people who don’t reward outstanding team members, who are witness to obvious blunders in work and team dynamics and don’t address them, who don’t create open and collaborative discussions, who haven’t provided me with the right environment and tools to do my job, and who aren’t specific about what they want done.

I’ve strived to model myself after those excellent leaders that I’ve had the privilege to work for. And, of course, I’ve pissed people off. Riding through the anger wave is tough, but the other side, where the team is really excelling, and happy and productive is a very very sweet spot.

Lesson 1 Checklist for PMs

Do I allow team members to shape and develop our agenda?

Am I rewarding top players?

Am I ignoring poor performance?

Do team members have all the tools they need to succeed?

What am I doing to hold team members accountable for what their work?

Am I consistently clear about the mission and objectives of the project?

• • Comments [1]
  • Tags [Leading Teams]
  • Categories [Leadership Series]