The Pied Piper of Leadership

On a recent trip to NZ I finally had time to visit the Hard to Find (but worth the effort) Book Shop in Auckland. It’s actually quite easy to find if you know where to look and once you’re in there very easy to get lost amongst the huge and eclectic collection of books. I was on the hunt for a birthday gift and once I found what I wanted hidden in English History amongst a host of fascinating titles, I was distracted by the business section. As I looked up and down the shelves Amanda Sinclair’s Leadership for the Disillusioned caught my eye. It was the word disillusioned that got me and my interest increased as I scanned the Introduction where the first 2 sentences read:

“This leadership book is not about how to run a company. It is for those who are disillusioned by their encounters with leaders and leadership: with idealised heroic performances, impoverished theories and oversimplified templates.”

I bought the book and this post expands one particular gem that when read made me exclaim ‘Yes, that’s exactly what it is!’

It's All In The DNA

It’s not often I register for a webcast but something about the Deloitte’s IWD (International Women’s Day) 2013 one piqued my interest. The subject was ‘Inclusive Leadership as the missing link for advancing women’ and it got me thinking… Is ‘Inclusive Leadership’ just another buzzword and why, if it really is something new, would it make a difference to the advancement of women? 

While there was a lot of interesting discussion and some good points made by the panel, the questions and responses didn’t really identify or highlight anything I hadn’t already seen or experienced. As the webcast progressed it seemed Inclusive Leadership was another way of giving a label to the behaviours leaders ought, in my mind, to be exhibiting anyway. Then finally the last question came – What is the definition of Inclusive Leadership? 

And The Winners Are

The Academy Awards ceremony, otherwise known as The Oscars, was held on Sunday 24 February 2013. A night of glitz and glamour where gongs are given, speeches made and the occasional mishap occurs.

On this same night another glittering star-studded Oscar ceremony took place – the virtual Project Management Oscars. To quote directly…

“For The Third Year In a Row #pduOTD – PDU Of The Day (pduOTD.com) tweeted their choices for 150 of the “Best of the Best PM BA Leadership & Agile/IT Twitter Users” & issued them PM Oscars throughout the day.  Every 5 minutes @pduOTD gave out another #PM_Oscar to an amazing person or organization.”

With sequins in place, lip gloss applied and acceptance speeches at the ready the Twitter community traversed the red carpet then waited with baited breath to see who would be honoured as Best of the Best. 

As Martin Chernenkoff and @pduOTD announced, one after another, an amazing list of talented knowledgeable #PM_Oscar winners I was heard to tweet “OMG, seriously?! WOW! Honoured, gosh”. To be awarded a prestigious PM Oscar by your peers and colleagues ‘For Excellence in International Project Fixing of Business IT Projects’ in the category Highlighting Project Management Field Experts, is a wonderful compliment.

Congratulations to Martin and @pduOTD on a superb ceremony and for their excellent work supporting PM’s around the globe. 

Now without further ado or falling over on my way to the podium, I’d like to thank…

A recap of all the Winners can be found here.

'Manager' - Not Just a Job Title

The posts you read on this blog are mostly about projects, the way an organisations DNA must change if it wants what it says it does, and the challenge of balancing the business drivers for that change with the dynamics of those on the receiving end of it. 

Balancing all this takes a combination of leadership and management. Without leadership people won’t have direction or guidance, and without management the company has no clue whether they’ve achieved the desired result or not. A company can be as inclusive as it likes, empower its employees, and push the boundaries of innovation but…  if it has people filling roles entitled ‘manager’ without knowing how to manage, it’s got a problem.

From executive level to daily ops, from programmes of multi-million dollar/pound/euro proportions to projects with miniscule budgets, the ability to manage is critical. Yet ‘management’ seems to have been pushed into the background. Execs that give a damn may now been seen as abdicating responsibility as, unwilling to deal with conflict or with bigger fish to fry, they look to their direct reports to pick up the slack. Middle management may be more concerned with keeping the peace rather than making those tough decisions and taking the necessary action to effect change.

How did this happen? Why has it happened? There is a multitude of reasons and of course gazillions of books written on the subject. Because there’s no single reason and rather than discussing the why’s and wherefore’s, let’s take a look at options for re-establishing an equilibrium for ‘manager’.