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This blog post has been created by: Ed Pelic, Nic Jain, Joe Colon, Cady Johnson, Smita Shetty, Heather Benson, Cathy Fisher, Simon Lato, Babette Ten Haken, Craig Karagitz
The group of contributors is made of practicing project managers to help build their leadership skills, learning from the best minds of all times. Please note we are not endorsing any specific book or piece of content. The material is used only as a framework for the members to transform how they perform as leaders through principles discovered and applied to specific situations that Project Managers encounter.
The group recently completed reading Lincoln on Leadership by Donald Phillps. Key learnings from a Project Management perspective have been summarized in this post. The extraordinary challenges Lincoln faced as President while the United States was engaged in civil war and his leadership actions in response are arranged in the theme categories (sections) of People, Character, Endeavor, and Communication. Some elements of Lincoln’s life prior to his Presidency were reviewed as well.
We learned how Lincoln’s leadership actions demonstrated the golden principles. We explored the leadership principles practiced by Lincoln and reflected on ways to incorporate them into daily practices and interactions. In this way, leadership situations Lincoln experienced can be leveraged to develop and enhance individual leadership skills in a transformational way.
Key Leadership Learnings
- Be an effective communicator. Use several mechanisms to achieve this.
Know your audience - frame your message to suit your audience. Use clear and simple language. Don’t use terms or abbreviations unknown to your audience.
One on one conversation - speaking one on one is a good technique to win over a friend or rival to adopt your position.
Use anecdotes - be a good story teller to illustrate your point of view. People will understand the message in the story and remember it going forward.
Humor - use of humor is effective in disarming people and putting people at ease.
Lincoln worked diligently on the Gettysburg address. His few minute speech is considered one of the best speeches of all time. The speaker before Lincoln spoke for 2 hours, yet nobody remembers who the speaker was or his speech.
- People follow character
Character is very important for an effective leader - people will choose to follow a leader who establishes trust through his/her actions and character.
“Have malice toward none and charity for all”
Failure builds character - Do not let failures diminish your drive. Learn from the experience as a foundation to try again with greater knowledge.
- Be engaging with people.
Management by walking around - meet your team members on their own turf, get out into the field.
Delegate effectively - provide opportunities for other. After communicating expectations, do not hesitate to take action if people are not performing.
Believe in yourself - know yourself and promote your values. Remain determined.
This video addresses additional scenarios discussed by participants, including how they would apply these learnings to real-world scenarios faced by Project Managers.