Colorful Leadership

Harnessing the Power
of Human Ingenuity

Leading to the MAX
You are a leader, whether you believe it or not.

Some people are seen natural leaders. When they speak others listen. When they walk into a room they are noticed. They were born to lead and everyone knows it. This is a stereotype. Inspirational leadership is just one of many styles. Another major style is leading by example. People follow these leaders because they are good at what they do.  Often these leaders are not comfortable with their leadership. They might ask, “Why are you following me?” The answer is, “because you are good at what you do.” They slowly and surely develop a reputation of getting the job done right. People follow them because they will succeed in the long run. Next, different situations require different leadership styles. Not everybody is alike. Your leadership comes out when the situation requires it. Here are some of the situations most project managers will see.

Prime Mover
These leaders create new things. They come up with the new product, service, market, and anything that hasn’t been done yet. Their strength is growing the organization. Failure doesn’t bother them because they will create a new idea or approach that will succeed.

Implementer
These are the process and how to leaders. Once they clearly see the goal or vision they know how to make it happen. Their immediate goal is to eliminate confusion and make things efficient. Their strength is a long track record of measurable success.

Problem Solver
These leaders are dormant until something bad happens. They like to come to the rescue. Their approach is to quickly come up with options that will fix the problem. They know certain options will work because they have developed them from long experience. Their strength is providing confidence to people who worry a lot.

Personal Power Points
Regardless of the situation and your leadership styles there are skills that you can develop that will make you more effective as a leader. These are tools which maximize leadership

• Vision – a clear vision produces a precise result
• Commitment – using understanding, agreement, and personal interest to get 100% buy-in
• Values – doing the Right thing the right way
• Communication – using words, pictures, and feelings to get the message across
• Power – if you perceive you have power you do but if you don’t perceive it you don’t
• Connection – “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.”

Everybody is a leader. You may lead by inspiration or you may lead by example. Situations will come you way and you will be needed. The key is to be prepared with the Personal Power Points.

In the Tough Teams workshop, Creating High Performance Project Teams, we focus on leading project teams. There is no single method for achieving team results, instead we show how to read the situation and run with it.