Recently I was part of a special project within my company. I was in a support position and I had a unique opportunity to observe the interactions of the people assigned to the project. It was a large project including many senior managers and very important departments. There was a project manager who was doing an excellent job coordinating the project but the decisions were at a high level and were such that no one department really had a clear mandate. As you would expect the project started with each department providing their input and requirements but when actual decisions needed to be made there was a hesitation. Those involved are all excellent managers and experts in their own field but there seemed to be a hesitancy to even suggest some courses of action. Each player had sound recommendations concerning their area of expertise but no one appeared to be responsible for the final outcome.
As I reviewed the final outcome I began to analyze the management methods within the project. As you might expect I don’t hesitate to step into a decision vacuum but in this case I did not have the expertise necessary to do so. I began to try to identify the management functions that make projects successful. Some are relative easy to identify. The Champion is a well known function, usually identified with a product or a long term project, but the final function was not that of a Champion. The Expert is another important function and while there were a number of experts within the team, myself being one, it was not the expert that made the project successful.
What made this project successful was plain old fashioned leadership. One of the significant players simply stepped forward and began to use his leadership skills to solicit, recommend and develop consensus on important decisions. It was really refreshing to see leadership demonstrated so masterfully. Remember this was a senior manager working with other peers who are strong resourceful managers. Without being autocratic this manager waded through the requirements and began to propose well developed courses of action that other managers could approve without abrogating their own responsibilities. As a support player my main function is to get instructions and to execute them, it is extremely uncomfortable if no instructions are forthcoming or are vague. (If you want to know the prospect for success of a project all you have to do is ask the support people. ) When this manager began operating my instructions became very succinct and clear. This is important to me because I like to provide excellent support and without clear instructions I have to sometimes have to guess at what a user or project needs.
There are lots of good managers and administrators in this world. Leaders unfortunately are not as prevalent as managers and administrators. In this case the distinct difference between a manager and a leader made the difference between success and failure for this project. The critical leadership functions that I identified during the project were:
· Taking risks
· Leading people not managing work
· Personal charisma instead of formal authority
· Proactive instead of reactive
· Desire for achievement
· Concern for the final outcome and not personal gain
Personally I would rather have a leader in charge, even though the support requirements are usually greater, than to have an manager or administrator in charge.
Rich Payne
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