Lights! Camera! Action!

  Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

Leadership training often calls upon military or sports metaphors, but project teams are not about hierarchy or adrenaline-fueled speeches. A more apt analogy can be found in the highly-skilled, collaborative environment of film-making. Here is a director’s take on vision and goal-setting, measuring and feedback, and communication.

If you had to sit through eight hours of leadership training tomorrow, which leader do you think would teach you more about how to lead your particular organization: Gen. Colin Powell (the former U. S. Army general) or Steven Spielberg (the award-winning filmmaker)?

Perhaps you don’t have an immediate answer. Maybe you’ve been a big fan of one or the other and one personality attracts you more than the other. But our question shouldn’t really be about who would you enjoy more as your instructor, but instead should be about who has the most to teach you; whose leadership situation and experiences match your situation better. It is probably Spielberg’s. Let’s explore that a moment.

To begin, Colin Powell’s organization is much, much larger than Steven Spielberg’s. Powell’s is layered with bureaucracy and governed by thousands of pages of policies and procedures. The team members follow a strict hierarchy and authority structure, and everyone is taught to follow their leader. Importantly, the …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.