Lost Leaders

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  

Sometimes we don’t recognize when we are in the presence of a good leader until after we have moved on. We judge differences in personality and style too quickly, reflect on their potential value too slowly, and lose out on opportunities to grow as leaders ourselves.

I’ve known for a long time that I would write this article one day. Now I’m ready to write it, and I hope that just one person can learn from it — make that one other person, for it’s a lesson that I will never forget.

I have been fortunate to be given a voice for my opinions and ideas on project management, leadership and related topics. That voice has led to a number of people reaching out to me over the years for advice and guidance. That can be very flattering. It can also lead to a level of self-confidence that can risk morphing into arrogance and I have tried to be very careful to prevent that from happening. I always try to surround myself with smart people who not only help me to learn, and I always try to recognize the people who have helped me to develop the skills that I do have.

However, sometimes we don’t recognize when we are in the presence of a great leader until it’s too late to learn from them. We can be quick to judge but slow to reconsider those judgments. When we write off others, we lose the opportunity to grow from what they can teach us. …

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