However, although 90% rated "most project leader's" technical skills as better than (or at least) average;
75% rated their interpersonal skills as just average, poor or very poor."

The survey was conducted by The Center for Management and Organisation Effectiveness in 1996.
(Of the 82 respondents, 55 were Project Leaders and 27 were managers of Project Leaders.
The largest speciality was I.T. or Consulting Engagement Projects, which accounted for 45% of the Project Leads.

The survey results, titled "Why Project Leaders Succeed" also made the following points:*

Most project leaders have been thrown in at the deep end with little or no training being provided. Our guess is that organisations assumed that technical competence and skills would generalise to the skills needed to be a Project Leader. Unfortunately, the organisation probably lost a good technical resource and gained a struggling Project Leader."
 
The Greatest People Challenges were: Dealing with lack of commitment, lessened sense of mission,
alignment of everyone's understanding and efforts, and accountability by project team members.
 
85% or greater of the respondents said the following were the critical skills needed to be a successful project leader:
- Listens to others
- Asks questions, to stimulate thinking
- Clarifies roles, expectations
- Establishes trust
- Recognises individual accomplishments
- Develops a sense of teamwork

Top three things Managers-of-Project Leader can do more of:
Support, be attentive, listen, protect, mentor, recognise, reward.
Communicate, work closely, give clear goals, ask question, listen, provide feedback.
Delegate and allow, clear goals, allow trial and error, protect.

Recommendations:
Training, training and more training! The preponderance of responses
from relatively new project leaders should underline the crying need for help in:
Interpersonal skills: coaching, team building, establishing trust,
and gaining commitment without the use of formal authority.
Communications skills: with team members (listening, asking questions), peers and managers
as well as presentation skills.
Project planning/managing process skills: Clarifying roles and expectations,
defining goals/sub goals, recognition of accomplishments."

- * Edited by Tony Lenart from www.thecoach.com/plssresults.htm


Success Comes With Understanding Human Dynamics

A successful business is one that can deal well with the human dimensions of its affairs

(Board members of global companies are now expected to be versed in a whole range of issues
that don't immediately appear pertinent to running a successful enterprise.)

I am not just talking about the environment and occupational health and safety;
their importance has long been recognised.

Today we get questions about our impact on indigenous cultures, on human rights issues,
on community and employee relationships and on corporate ethics.

Hardly a day goes by that I do not see hard evidence
that a successful business is one that can deal well with the human dimensions of its affairs.

I am convinced that we have to recognise, and consciously combat the danger
that technology and the sheer scale of our operations can come between us and the people whose lives we change.

- Leon Davis, U.K. based Chief Executive of CRA-RTZ,
addressing the Australian Institute of Company Directors' 1997 conference.


How to be an approachable manager

One of the main complaints staff make about their managers is that they are unapproachable.
Managers often don't understand this
because they are always willing to speak with any staff member who asks to speak to them.

However, being approachable means possessing and exhibiting a combination of many factors:

1/ Physical availability
- actually being in the office and able to set aside time to speak with staff.

2/ Energetic availability
- putting your full attention on the person speaking to you.

3/ Openness
- being open to new and different ideas
- and really being willing to see things from another person's viewpoint instead of your own.

4/ A caring nature
- such that staff feel comfortable sharing their private problems, concerns and fears with you
- and demonstrating this sufficiently that all staff (not just those who know you well),
recognise that you will be caring and understanding.

5/ Good listening skills
- exhibiting the ability & willingness to really understand what your staff are trying to say to you
(not just what you think they are trying to say).
- This includes the ability to stop talking, and a lot more as well.

6/ A happy, trustworthy, and (at least a reasonably) loving disposition.
- People don't want to share sensitive and personal information with someone they don't trust
(to keep confidences, and to use what they say in a way that will support the person sharing).
- nor will they choose to speak openly to a sourpuss, a cranky or an angry person.
(Think of the times you wanted to talk with your manager.
Would you have gone into their office if they were looking upset?
Or would you have waited till they looked more positive;
or seen someone else who looked more approachable?)

And the test is not whether you think you meet the above criteria
- its the degree to which your staff think you meet them.
If you think you're a good listener, but people talking to you think you aren't, then they are probably right.

So go ask some members of your staff (one person at a time)
to give you a totally honest, critical evaluation of how well, or badly you meet the above criteria.

And also include feedback from some staff members who are a number of levels below you - and don't know you well.
Because even if you're the nicest person in the company,
but the only people who know this are those who've worked closely with you,
then you'll still be considered unapproachable by the rest of the company.

- Tony Lenart

In the West we tend to think of leadership as a quality that exists in certain people. This usual way of thinking has many traps. We search for special individuals with leadership potential, rather than developing the leadership potential in everyone. We are easily distracted by what this or that leader is doing, by the melodrama of people in power trying to maintain their power and others trying to wrest it from them. When things are going poorly, we blame the situation on incompetent leaders, thereby avoiding any personal responsibility. When things become desperate, we can easily find ourselves waiting for a great leader to rescue us. Through all of this, we totally miss the bigger question: 'What are we, collectively, able to create?'

- Peter Senge


"Current research indicates that the so-called feminine attributes (well exercised in parenting) are the critical capacities required to effectively manage in the emerging democratic cultures of our organisations."

-Sally Helgesen in the Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership


Transformational Leadership: A Self-Development Challenge

On average, women tend to be better leaders than men. I don't want to overly alarm the minority gender, but the characteristics of good leadership these days tend to mirror the attributes normally found in women -- on average. The "feminisation" of leadership means that managers who become better leaders are the managers who adopt the behaviors, attitudes, and attributes, that are normally characteristic of the female gender.

It refers also to leaders adopting behaviors and tactics that emphasise the shift towards collaborative behavior. Terms such as empowerment, open communication, trust, and an emphasis on the "soft" issues of management are characteristic of this pattern. The Industry Taskforce on Leadership and Management Skills concluded that these practices were applicable in most areas of business. The taskforce also concluded that Australian managers of the 21st Century would need to be better leaders and more feminised in style.

Transformational leadership is a popular buzzword, but there are ways that we can all self-develop to become better transformational leaders. And you don't have to be female to do it.

- Ken Parry, Page 30, "Human Resources Monthly" (The official journal of The Human Resources Institute), June 1998


The Two Elements of Leadership

A great manager drives his (or her) organisation and people
with power and passion.
He never lets inertia
(and the concomitant laziness and paradigm inflexibility)
cripple himself or his people.
He settles for no less than excellence.

But the key to his (or her) success is to balance this power, drive and passion,
with empathy (understanding, compassion - dare we say love).
For only through empathy will the work force unite;
working together, communicating fully,
empowering each other,
such that everyone is committed
to the success of the organisation and each other.

Only through empathy is fear overcome.
And fear is the greatest enemy;
the greatest barrier to excellence.

All great managers, all great leaders,all great people,
have mastered and utilise these two energies in balance.

Neither will work alone.

Power alone accomplishes nothing of value.

And if we had empathy alone, without any power,
we would be impotent to achieve anything
for ourselves or for others.

Power and Empathy together
incorporate a harmony, a synthesis, a synergy
of the energies of Male and Female, Yin and Yang,
the Left and Right Brain, and the West and the East.

A leader who leads with power and empathy
leads with his head and his heart.
And in giving all of himself,
his staff give all of themselves
and achieve extraordinary results.

-Tony Lenart