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The Five Myths of Leadership
Mike Griffiths is an experienced project manager, author and consultant who works for PMI as a subject matter expert. Before joining PMI, Mike consulted and managed innovation and technology projects throughout Europe, North and South America for 30+ years. He was co-lead for the PMBOK Guide—Seventh Edition, lead for the Agile Practice Guide, and contributor to the PMI-ACP and PMP exam content outlines. Outside of PMI, Mike maintains the websites www.LeadingAnswers.com about leading teams and www.PMillustrated.com, which teaches project management for visual learners.
“In no other area of management education is the concept of myth as prevailing as in leadership.” - Jeffery Pinto, Project Leadership: From Theory to Practice
Agile project management is more closely aligned to leadership best practices than traditional project management best practices. However, the domain of leadership is rife with myths and misconceptions. It also has an “elitist” reputation that puts most people off wanting to learn more about it since our sense of humility guides us away from pursuing such egotistical goals. This produces a vicious circle: We have these misconceptions about leadership, but because it seems egocentric we leave it alone and do not overcome them.
This is a shame, because when you strip away the myths, leadership is really about team work, empowering others and putting the goals of an endeavour above personal goals--quite the opposite of elitist, egocentric behaviour.
Let’s explore and slay the five myths of leadership…
1. Myth: Great Man Syndrome. Leaders must have some elusive, larger-than-life, “rock-star” personality to be effective, otherwise people will not follow them.
Slain: While some leaders do have charismatic personalities, it is not a prerequisite to being an effective leader. In fact, in the book …
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"Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves." - Bertrand Russell |