Project Leadership
154
Project Leadership
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781567264104 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Berrett-Koehler Publishers |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2003 |
| Series: | Project Management Essential Library |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 154 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Arthur Shriberg, EdD, is a professor of Leadership at Xavier University. Dr. Shriberg has been vice president or dean at four universities and is currently the chair of the Board of Commissioners for the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission and a senior consultant at Pope&Associates, a n international diversity and management consulting firm. He holds degrees from the Wharton School of Business (BS), Xavier University (Executive Business), Boston University (Med), and Teachers College, Columbia University (EdD).
Jayashree Venkatraman, MS, MBA, is an independent consultant providing business-to-business solutions and other solutions to companies. She holds a BS in physics and an MS in computer applications from the University of Madras, India, an MBA from Xavier University, and a certificate in Project Management from the University of Cincinnati.
Read an Excerpt
Project Leadership
By Timothy J. Kloppenborg, Arthur Shriberg, Jayashree Venkatraman
Management Concepts Press
Copyright © 2003 Management Concepts, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-56726-410-4
CHAPTER 1
The Origins of Project Leadership
In this chapter we first discuss the basics of management and then review the two "children" of management that evolved in the latter part of the last century: leadership and project management. As we help the reader understand the basics of these three key disciplines, we will pave the way for discussion of a new approach that is evolving in the twenty-first century: project leadership. Figure 1-1 illustrates this evolution from management to project leadership.
MANAGEMENT
The practice of management, defined for many centuries as planning, organizing, directing, and controlling, has existed since early times. Building the Great Wall of China, running the Roman Empire, and preparing armies for battle all required management skills; until the late nineteenth century, however, management was usually viewed as an art that was passed on from generation to generation by oral tradition. In the last hundred years, the science of management has developed. While management was once defined as "the ability work through others," today most definitions are similar to the one offered by Courtland Bouee, in his book Management: "Management is the process of attaining organizational goals by effectively and efficiently planning, organizing, leading and controlling the organization's human, physical, financial and informational resources." This definition is presented graphically in Figure 1-2.
These four management activities can be described as:
• Planning. The process of creating goals and developing ways to achieve them has undergone dramatic changes in recent years as organizations have begun to think of goals and plans at three levels. Strategic planning is set at organizational levels and is usually of long duration. Tactical planning is set by middle managers to support corporate goals, is related to individual departments, and is usually of middle duration, often less than year. Operational planning is set by first-line management, to be achieved in the short run by individuals or departments.
• Organizing. The traditional method of organizing is by function or division. In recent years the trend has been to organize work by teams and networks with the aim of minimizing levels of decision-making. Organizations are flatter, and line and staff rules are being integrated in new ways.
• Leading. Today, the whole question of the leader's role in ethical decision-making and responding to a wide variety of stakeholders — not just more senior leaders — is a central question.
• Controlling. We have moved from a very centralized controlling system to a model whereby every associate is in the quality control business. Continuous improvement is key in all organizations.
All these functions are now being viewed in the context of the organizational mission and values. The development of a statement of purpose or "mission statement," once just assumed to be profit maximization, is now a central and continuous function of management.
Throughout the twentieth century, several schools of management thought developed. These approaches, all of which still play a role, include the classical approach, the human relations movement, management science, systems theory, total quality management, and learning organizations.
The classic approach to management, also called "scientific management," focuses on the processes that workers use and attempts to find the best way to perform a task. We entered the industrial era seeking better (defined as more efficient) ways of doing things. Time and motion studies were the norm. Another aspect of this classical period in management was the evolution of classical organization theory — a school of thought that argued that work should be divided into logical functional areas, with each person having one boss. This led to the concept of bureaucracy, which was viewed as a means of ensuring productivity. The key aspects of bureaucracy (which over the years has taken on a negative connotation) are specialization of labor, formal procedures and rules, impersonal systems, clear hierarchy, and career advancement based on the quantity of productivity.
Many of these principles do not regard employees as human beings making specific contributions and having individual needs and concerns. As the century progressed, the human relations movement began. This movement stated that the path to success was through satisfying workers' basic needs, which would make the workers more productive. Behavioral scientists from a variety of disciplines helped companies understand that workers did indeed have different needs and, as these needs were satisfied, the workers became more productive. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, shown in Figure 1-3, still guides many decision-makers.
As we made progress in the mathematical sciences, the impact of the management science perspective grew. We learned that mathematical models and other statistical techniques could assist managers in making key decisions.
During World War II, several new approaches to management developed that are still called "contemporary management." The development of systems theory taught us that organizations are a set of interrelated parts that should function in a coordinated way to achieve a common goal. This led to a response that not all variables can be controlled and the development of a "contingency view," which states that managers often have to say "it depends" and make different decisions depending upon the particular situation.
The total quality movement began in the 1950s in Japan and did not truly come into vogue in the United States until the 1980s. The best known spokesperson for this movement, W. Edward Deming, developed a list of 14 points that must all be followed to ensure that total quality exists in an organization. Operationally, many managers have distilled the intent of Deming's list to: thoroughly understand all your customers, empower your employees, make decisions based on facts, and continually improve all your work processes.
Today, the concept of learning organizations has taken center stage. This concept implies that organizations are living entities that can learn, grow, and adapt to the environment. The more quickly organizations can change, the more likely it is that they will gain an advantage over their competitors.
Management has changed in many ways in the last hundred years, but all these theories are still practiced in many settings. It was in the last half of the twentieth century that leadership and project management began to evolve from management into separate disciplines.
LEADERSHIP
While there is substantial agreement on the elements and definition of management, there is little agreement on the definition of leadership, its functions, or even whether or not it is a discipline (although increasingly scholars agree that it is). Our favorite definition of leadership is: "an influence relationship among leaders and their collaborators, who intend real change that reflects their shared purpose."
In his book On Leadership, John Gardner states that the functions of leadership are:
1. Envisioning goals
2. Affirming and regenerating important group values
3. Motivating others toward collective goals
4. Managing the process through which these collective goals can be achieved
5. Achieving unity of effort through pluralism and diversity
6. Creating an atmosphere of mutual trust
7. Explaining and teaching
8. Serving as a symbol of the group's identity
9. Representing the group's interest to outside parties
10. Renewing and adapting the organization to a changing world.
We have identified ten different approaches to the study of leadership, as shown in Figure 1-4. Each is part of most leadership theories and each needs to be practiced in new ways in this century.
Trait Theory
It has long been accepted that, by studying the traits of others, we can learn how they function. After World War II, when the field of leadership began to emerge as a separate discipline, people often believed that the way to be an effective leader was to study others they perceived as effective. Biographies of leaders are plentiful. Studies of their various traits abound. Again, we turn to Gardner, who teaches us that leaders most often have the following attributes:
1. Physical vitality and stamina
2. Intelligence and action-oriented judgment
3. Eagerness to accept responsibility
4. Task competence
5. Understanding of followers and their needs
6. Skills in dealing with people
7. Need for achievement
8. Capacity to motivate people
9. Courage and resolution
10. Trustworthiness
11. Decisiveness
12. Self-confidence
13. Assertiveness
14. Adaptability.
While others may choose different traits, these types of traits have always been valued. Daniel Goldman, in his highly acclaimed work, The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence, teaches us that self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills are the keys to being a great leader.
Group Skills
Groups need information givers, gatekeepers, consensus builders, and many other roles to be filled. Courses in group dynamics are taught in an effort to develop these skills.
Today the emphasis is on how to turn a group into a team and on ensuring that the team empowers all its members to be effective and productive in implementing shared goals. Organizational workers (often called associates or partners) are increasingly being encouraged to build effective teams and to provide input into all aspects of the teams' goals. While at one time most people were evaluated solely on their individual productivity, the concept of mutual dependence is growing; each year more of us are evaluated at last in part based on the productivity of our "team."
The modern leader understands that effective teams have interdependent members. The productivity and efficiency of an entire unit is determined by the coordinated, interactive efforts of all its members.
Advantages of effective teams include:
• Members are more efficient working together than alone.
• Teams create their own magnetism.
• Leadership rotation allows those with expertise to lead.
• Team members care for and nurture one another.
• Each member gives and receives mutual encouragement.
• Members share a high level of trust.
If a team is to be successful, its leader needs to understand how teams develop and what is expected at each stage of team development.
Situational Leadership
The situational leadership theory tells us that the directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating styles of leadership are all needed at different times. The original view stated that the needs of the followers dictate the necessary leadership style, as shown in Figure 1-5.
Organizational Skills
Traditionally leaders have been expected to know how to organize things in an efficient manner. They make sure that people have one boss, clear directions, etc. They develop organizational charts that are clean and easy to understand, choosing either a functional or a divisional structure with clearly defined lines of authority. Strategic, functional, and operational plans and goals are carefully developed. Leaders know the "rules" of creating an organization that works and they do it well. They understand how to function within their role in the organization, and they slowly and appropriately move up in the organizational hierarchy.
All these guidelines may still apply, but in this century leaders live in "permanent white water." Organizations are matrixed, team-based, networked, or organized in some unique way. Traditional pyramids are being inverted. Change may be the only constant. While it is useful to understand traditional organizational skills, it is also necessary to realize that flexibility and speed are often the new rules. The ways to lead an organization effectively are as varied as the number of people with positional power in that organization.
Leadership and Politics
Traditionally leadership was taught as a subset of the field of politics. The key concept was power and the challenge to leaders was to use power wisely. Understanding how to use legitimate power (the power that comes with a position or title), the power to reward, and the power to punish was the basis of leadership.
Today we talk about referent power — how people view or respect other people. This power cannot be delegated or assigned, but must be earned. We also value expert power, which is found throughout any organization and is the ability to understand or do something well. Instead of "power over," we discuss empowerment or "power with." Sam Walton built Wal-Mart by empowering his associates to run a "store within a store."
Power is also often examined in terms of minority groups who lack the power of the majority. Throughout the second part of the twentieth century we discussed "black power," "women power," "gay power," and other groups who are "disempowered" and seeking a change. Successful leaders understand that power needs to be shared and that empowered people are productive people.
Charismatic Leadership
In the mid-twentieth century we had many charismatic leaders, such as John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Lee Iacocca, Billy Graham, and Jackie Robinson. Jay Conger defines a charismatic leader as "someone who possesses an ability to introduce quantum changes in an organization." He indicates that these people take the organization through four steps:
1. Sensing opportunities and finding vision
2. Articulating the vision
3. Building trust in the vision
4. Achieving the vision.
So far in this century there appears to be a dearth of charismatic leaders. In the last five years we have asked more than one thousand students to name charismatic leaders; rarely is a current leader mentioned. However, in a recent national study, one third of the people who indicated that they "enjoy" their work stated that their boss or company leaders were charismatic. Clearly, leaders can be successful without charisma, but it is also true that charisma is a helpful trait if used properly. There is a dark side of charisma, however, as Hitler, bin Laden, and others have demonstrated. In the twentieth century perhaps a fifth element should be added to Conger's definition: choosing a vision that advances humankind in a positive direction.
Humane and Ethical Leadership
In the 1980s a trend developed that considered the only true leaders to be those who were ethical and humane. The prevailing view was that a leader needs to be ethically grounded and a person of integrity.
The current crisis in confidence in our institutions also requires leaders to hold ethical standards that create win/win situations for everyone. The challenge is to solve problems in the long run. Respecting the individual becomes a key measure of a leader.
Today we respect work/life balance and we expect leaders to respect the individual needs of all associates. Leaders are expected to promote healthy behavior of all sorts in the organization. The ethical leader treats all people fairly but not the same. Leaders at all levels are expected to be ethical and humane and are often held to higher standards than they were in the past.
Humane leaders are also humane followers; they understand that to lead well, one must also follow well.
Leadership Action Formulas
Bookstores have been filled with "how to lead" books for close to a century. While these books once were formulaic and rule-driven, they now reflect the complexity of leading in a modern world. Many famous athletes, corporate leaders, and government officials have written books about leadership, from Maxwell's 21 irrefutable laws of leadership to Larry Holman's 11 lessons in self-leadership.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Project Leadership by Timothy J. Kloppenborg, Arthur Shriberg, Jayashree Venkatraman. Copyright © 2003 Management Concepts, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Management Concepts Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface,Acknowledgments,
CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Project Leadership,
CHAPTER 2 Project Initiating,
CHAPTER 3 Project Planning,
CHAPTER 4 Project Executing,
CHAPTER 5 Project Closing,
CHAPTER 6 Project Leadership Challenges,
APPENDIX A Project Leadership Assessment: Organizational,
APPENDIX B Project Leadership Assessment: Individual,
APPENDIX C Project Leadership Assessment: Team,
Glossary,
Bibliography,
Index,