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Leadership - the Lone Ranger, or Teamwork?

June 24, 2007 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Leadership

Leadership - the Lone Ranger, or Teamwork?
By Adrian Abramovici

Much is made of the qualities of the leader, and how the leader will make or beak the company. And of course it is true, the guy at the top (any “top”, whether a Project Manager, a Department head or the whole enchilada) has way more influence on the performance of the whatever he or she is on top of than 25% of the individual contributors working underneath (25% is a highly scientific guesstimate I came up with just now, so feel free to argue about it…).

But how about that first layer underneath the leader? The group leads or project engineers under the Project Manager, or the Directors under the VP, or the VPs in the GM’s team – let’s just call them the management team? Ultimately that leader will not be implementing everything alone, but will rely on this management team to take the top level decisions and turn them into implementable plans and into actions. On well aligned and well balanced teams, that is the case. But what if the team is not well aligned and balanced?

What if some of the guys on the team are passively resisting the direction the leader is taking the project, or the company, towards? Sometimes the implementation orders get “translated” into something not much resembling the intentions of the leader, and other times nothing gets done – because the management team is looking to gauge the seriousness of the leader – in other words, will he remember what he asked for and actually ask for results?

Another possible issue is when some of the management team members are only managing upwards, and can not, or will not be bothered with actually coming up with a plan and getting down and dirty in implementation. The top monkey looks down and sees these smiling faces, but is he looking for results?

Of course, and as usual, it is all up to the leader. He or she must trust but verify, set policy and direction but then come back and check that those have been implemented and the ship is changing course. Leaders at all levels that just leave it at defining policy but do not follow through are going to fail the persistency and consistency checks most organization apply to direction from above before they actually move.

If you are a Leader, take a lesson from, well, just about any sport where one must impart movement onto something else – think baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, heck – even boxing. If you ever played, or even only watched one these sports, you do know by now that it is not enough to just hit the target (ball, puck, jaw, whatever) – you must also follow through to ensure you impart the target all the energy you have built up, and send it in the direction you intended it to go. It always astounds me how many leaders know all this intuitively on the golf course, but suffer from chronic amnesia once they hit the boardroom!

As for the people on the team, I believe the leader has the responsibility of forging a team he or she can trust, based on results and not just on how good their PR is and their smiling faces. If results are not forthcoming, change the people, or change the people! My buss is going this way – you’re either on it, or off it. Once a leader has been selected, he or she has the right to pick the management team that suits her goals, thinking and management style – or if he inherits one that does not, it is his responsibility to make the appropriate changes, fast. If the leader does not do that, he will fail.

Adrian Abramovici is, after more than 25 years of aerospace project management, an executive in the rail transportation industry based in Toronto, Canada. He is writing about his experiences and views on Project Management, Risk Management and the day-to-day frustrations and successes of leadership at http://themasochisticpm.spaces.live.com

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