Effective Leadership is based on 5 principles:
1. Building vision
Sharing a common vision and goals and having the same understanding about tracking the progress towards this vision is one of the key factors in the success of an organization.
2. Nurturing collaboration
A performing team yields synergy effects; the impossible becomes possible. This is why team building is crucial.
3. Cultivating performance
Planning is good and important. At the end of the day you and your team have to perform. As a leader it is your responsibility to create a culture of performance, both on the individual and team level.
4. Promoting learning
Effective leaders are open for receiving and giving feedback. It requires courage to explore new avenues and to make mistakes and to learn from them. An effective leader or organization should reserve a minimum of 10% of work for learning, creativity, and innovation.
5. Ensuring delivery
Delivering results is both a prerequisite and an outcome of effective leadership. The effective leader ensures delivery while incorporating the first 4 characteristics of leadership: definining vision, nurturing collaboration, promoting learning.
Want to learn more about these 5 principles? I am working on a new book on these principles. Progress reports will be posted on this blog and twitter (thomasjuli).
I agree, these 3 pillars are important aspects of leadership. My question is, “How do we execute them?”
This depends on the environment and the role and responsibility of the “leader”. If we are talking about a project manager the following elements are important.
(1) Building vision:
• Vision document: Every project starts with a vision. Hence, the first step of any project is to ensure a common understanding of the project objectives. The results are documented in a “Vision Document”; the purpose of which is a) to describe the project objectives and b) to collect, analyze, and define high-level features of the solution. It focuses on key features of the solution which come from the top needs of the stakeholders and users. These will form the basis for the more detailed technical and contractual requirements detailed in a later step of the requirements management process.
• Stakeholder interviews: In order to crete a vision document the project manager needs to meet and talk with all key stakeholders, understand their needs and expectations. Insights need to be documented.
• Project objective workshop: Unless the project objectives are crystal clear and mutually understood and supported, conduct a project objective definition workshop. An example of a similar workshop is decribed in one of my articles (http://www.thomasjuli.com/Realigning_Project_Objectives_by_Thomas_Juli,Ph.D._v1.0.pdf) .
• Team norming: A project leader is nothing without his / her team. A team norming addresses the project objectives, time frame, roles and responsibilities as well as expectations. It is recommended that the team norming is facilitated by a third person.
(2) Nurturing collaboration:
• Conduct a team norming: Don’t start a project without one or you will fail. Develop a communication and escalation governance structure.
• Team dynamics: Meet with your team daily. Identify issues AND risks, promote resolution finding on the team and individual levels.
• Delegation: Only ineffective leaders try to do everything by themselves. Trust and empower your team.
• Team dynamics: Every team goes through the famous four phases of team development (forming, storming, norming, performing). There is NO exception. Notice when you have entered the storming phase, because then it is time to revisit the results of the initial team norming and make modificiations where necessary.
• Team events: Have fun! The absolute minimum should be team dinners once in awhile. Do something together where you don’t talk about work. Learn more about each other.
(3) Promoting learning:
• Feedback: Create an open environment for constructive feedback. In my own projects I conduct feedback sessions on a weekly basis (what worked well last week, what do we need to do better).
• Mistakes: Nobody is perfect. It is okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them. A good leader first seeks to understand why a mistake was made; the root cause needs to be understood. Then he/she may make suggestions how to avoid the mistake in the future.
• Innovation: I stated that an effective leader or organization should reserve a minimum of 10% of work for learning, creativity, and innovation. This holds true in a project setting, too. Build it in your project schedule. It will pay off. Note though that this is not a time buffer. Instead, these 10% are for feedback sessions, normings, team events, reviews, etc. Also, don’t forget to account for training and vacation.
The list is by far not complete; but it is start. Feedback is highly welcome and requested.