Leadership Is Always On

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

Don’t confuse being a leader with having a leader’s title. Leadership is a 24/7 mindset, not a light switch you can turn on and off based on how things are going. Demonstrate leadership in good times and bad, or you will lose credibility with those you seek to motivate and inspire.

A few weeks ago I met someone who wanted to discuss some challenges she was having on one of her projects. She was leading a major project with a sizeable team, and as a result she had a management team helping her — people in charge of different project aspects who reported to her as the overall project manager. One of those individuals had expected to be appointed as the project manager, and when he wasn’t given the job, he was clearly disappointed and became extremely demotivated. That, in turn, was rubbing off on other members of the team.

I was asked for advice about how to address this problem, but the conversation raised another issue as well. The project manager said her demotivated colleague was “a great leader — he just didn’t have enough experience to lead the project.” I want to explore that thought first because, to me, there is no possible way that he is a great leader — not yet.

Leaders Don’t Sulk

We have all experienced disappointments in our careers, times when things didn’t work out the way that we hoped or …

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