The other day I listened to the PMI Leadership in PM CoP webinar called Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership. After promptly losing my review, here is take 2. The speaker is the same “certified” practitioner of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and hypnotherapy as the last webinar I reviewed. Believe in those techniques if you want to.
The Goldilocks 'just right' style of leadership is just that; adjust you leadership to the situation. Some of his points, packaged by me:
- Don’t be a shrinking violet. Do let things go it is hurts the project. Don’t promote harmony just to keep conflict to zero. If there is conflict, attack it head on.
- Be demanding. Clearly state what needs to be done and get agreement on who is delivering what part. Hold people accountable for their deliverables.
- Don’t micromanage. Team member can and should take most of the decisions needed to accomplish their tasks. If you start micromanaging you end up taking ALL the decisions and you become the bottle neck.
- Allow mistakes to happen. People who achieve goals also make mistakes; those who do nothing have a perfect track record (of nothing). Mistakes are learning opportunities.
The webinar was very interesting on its discussion of toxic environments. People interested more in information control and Cover Your Ass (CYA) than in delivering. Rampant absenteeism, doing no more than the minimum expected, backstabbing, and behavior that equates agreeing to something with being defeated. Recognizing and dealing with a toxic environment is one of talents of the leader.
Basically it was an entry level webinar into leadership. Still worth listening to; you have to start somewhere and leadership is one of the weak points in project management
What do you think? As always questions and comments are welcome.
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