Week 10 Notes on Leadership and Project Management

WEEK 10 Notes - Define leadership and understand its role and importance in successfully managing projects. - Describe the five approaches to exemplary leadership and six leadership styles. - Explain the concept of emotional intelligence and how it can help on...

WEEK 10 Notes - Define leadership and understand its role and importance in successfully managing projects. - Describe the five approaches to exemplary leadership and six leadership styles. - Explain the concept of emotional intelligence and how it can help one to become a more effective leader. Define ethics and understand its importance in project leadership. Identify some of the ethical challenges that you may face as a project leader or project team member. - Define the difference between a work group and a team. - Describe culture and diversity as well as some of the challenges of leading and managing a multicultural project. **Leading the Project Team** - A successful project requires leadership. A project can have other leaders other than the project manager. For example a project team emember can be called upon due to their expertise in a specific area. 1. Ethics 2. Manage and lead project that include multicultural clients and project team members **Leadership** - Centers on vision (inspire a vision that the team wants to follow), change (create something that hasn't been done before) and getting results. - A leader tends to see the end before the project gets started and they chase that vision - Leadership is different from management **[5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership]** 1. ***Model the Way**:* Effective leaders, lead by example. Behavior is more important than words and is what ultimately wins respect. Words and deeds must be consistent, so the right message is conveyed. People follow the person first. 2. ***Inspire a Shared Vision**:* The leader will have a vision that acts as a force for inventing in the future. The vision should inspire people, so they become committed to a purpose. 3. ***Challenge the Process**:* Leaders venture out and accept challenges seeking out new opportunities to grow, innovate, and improve. Leaders are good listeners who recognize good ideas, support those ideas and challenge the process to make these new ideas happen. They don't necessarily come up with new ideas. Leaders accept risk and failure but they minimize it by taking and encouraging others to make incremental steps. They strive for small wins to boost confidence, commitment and learning. 4. ***Enable Others to Act**:* A leaders ability to get others to act is crucial. They enables others to act by encouraging collaboration and building trust among all the project stakeholders. A leader enables others to act by giving power away not by holding onto it. A leader must turn constituents into leaders themselves. 5. ***Encourage the Heart**:* Rally others to carry on by encouraging the heart when people become frustrated, disillusioned and willing to give up. They show appreciation for peoples contributions and create culture of celebration that recognizes those accomplishments. **Leadership Styles** There are 6 distinct leadership styles that leaders use but they do not usually follow only one leadership style but several off these. These leadership styles will show how performance and results are affected. 1. **The Coercive Style:** "I do as I say" approach to leading others. Effective in a crisis to dealing with a problem employee or when the leader is attempting to achieve immediate compliance. This style can have an negative impact on the climate of the organization or project. It can for example obstruct new ideas when it comes to decision making and communication if people believe ideas will be shot down or limit communication if people do not want to be the bearer of bad news. Moreover, people will soon lose their initiative, motivation, commitment, and sense of ownership because the coercive style can make people resentful and disillusioned. 2. **The Authoritative Style:** "Come with Me" Described as a "come with me" type of approach where the leader outlines a clearly defined goal but empowers people to choose their own means for achieving it. The authoritative leader provides vision and enthusiasm and motivates people by showing them how their work fits into the larger picture so that they know that what they are doing has meaning and purpose. Works well in most situations but is best suited for situations when people are adrift. May not work best for inexperienced leaders. 3. **The Affiliative Style:** "People Come First" attitude. Centers on the value of the individual. The leader attempts to build strong emotional bonds that translate into strong loyalty. People who like each other tend to communicate mor, share ideas and take risks. High flexibility as the leder does not impose rules and structure that define how the work must get done. This structure works well in teams who require building team harmony, morale trust, or communication. Does not work well when people need structure or advice to navigate through complex tasks or situations. 4. **The Democratic Style**: "What do You Think? Attempts to develop consensus through participation by asking "what do you think?"  The leaders spends most of his or her time getting other people's ideas, while building trust, respect, and commitment.  People have more say in the decisions that affect their goals and work.  Subsequently, morale tends to be higher and more realistic expectations.  Works best when the leader needs to build buy-in, consensus, or valuable input from others.  Can lead to seemingly endless meetings in a vain attempt to gain group consensus and cause conflicts, confusion, and the perception that the group is leaderless.  Not appropriate in crisis situation or when the group does not have the competence or experience to offer sound advice. 5. **The Pacesetting Style:** "Do as I say" Follows a "do as I say" attitude.  The leader exemplifies an obsession with doing things better and faster.  Poor performers are quickly identified and replaced.  Although the leader tries to set high standards for performance, morale can deteriorate if people feel overwhelmed by the demands for excellence and performance.  Goals may be clear to the leader but poorly communicated to the group.  People may lose energy and enthusiasm if the work becomes too task-focused, routine, or boring.  The pacesetting leader may try to micromanage and people can lose their direction or sense of how their work fits within the larger picture.  If the leader leaves, people may feel adrift since the pacesetter sets all direction.  Appropriate in situations that require quick results from a highly motivated, self-directed, and competent team. 6. **The Coaching Style:** "Try this" Follows the "try this" approach to help people identify their unique strengths and weaknesses so that they can reach their full potential and career goals. This leader encourages people to set long-term goals and then helps them develop a plan for achieving them. Coaching leaders are good at delegating and giving people attainable challenges. Short-term and minor failures are acceptable and viewed as learning experiences. Although this style appears to be the least often used, it can be a good approach when people want to be coached. It is least effective when people are resistant to change or when the leader does not have the knowledge, capability, or desire to be a coach. **Emotional Intelligence** Understanding and managing relationships and ourselves better. Goleman's study suggests that leaders who have mastered authoritative, democratic, affiliative and coaching styles have the best climate and have the highest performance. 4 Capabilities of emotional Intelligence: 1. Self-Awareness: Be aware of your emotions and understand how they can affect you and others. This requires that you understand your own strengths and weaknesses. 2. Self-Management: Understanding of you own impulses and negative emotions so that you can adapt to new situations, challenges and new opportunities. With self-Management you use the following 6 attributes: 1. Self-Control: Impulses and negative emotions in check 2. Trustworthiness: High level honesty and integrity 3. Conscientiousness: Self management, Responsibilities effectively 4. Adaptability: Adjusting to new situations and overcoming challenges 5. Achievement Orientation: High internal standards of excellecnce 6. Initiative: Seizing new opportunities 3. Social Awareness: Perceptive to others emotions and customer needs. Empathy and general concern for peoples problems and interests. And how the project fits within a larger system like the organization or industry. 4. Social Skills: Ultimately, this requires a set of skills to inspire, influence, communicate, facilitate the resolution of conflicts, as well as develop cooperation and relationships with others. **Ethics and Leadership** Ethics are a set of moral principles and values, and ethical dilemmas arise when our personal values come into conflict. Trevino and Nelson define ethics as the principles, norms, and standards of conduct that guide individuals and groups. There may also be some decisions that are not always clear-cut. For example: we often have to make decisions that fall into grey areas. They could be decisions that are torn between legal but unethical or ethical but illegal. There are various types of leadership and it is important to distinguish them apart: **Ethical Leadership** People who are brought into an organization learn about its culture through socialization. The socialization of "learning the ropes" such as training, mentoring, learning how to dress and interacting with peers / superiors can encourage or discourage ethical behaviour. Example: Al "Chainsaw" Dunlap: - Known for emotionally abusing employees - Subordinates were expected to "make the numbers at all costs\" - As a result, people used questionable accounting practices and sales techniques - He was caught lying and trying to cover up these practices - Was fired as Sunbeam's CEO when the company was near ruin - Paid a \$500,000 settlement with the SEC and can never serve as an officer of a publicly traded company again **Hypocritical Leadership** Possibly the worst type of leader because he or she extols the virtues or integrity and ethical conduct, but then engages in unethical behavior, encourages others to do so, rewards bottom-line results by any means, or fails to discipline any wrongdoing. Example: Jim Bekker: - Bakker took in millions of dollars by convincing people to purchase a limited number of life memberships for hotels that were part of a theme park - Only 25,000 memberships were to be sold that would allow a family to stay free each year for 4 days/3 nights - However, 66,000 memberships were sold (an impossible number for the hotel to support) and Jim and his wife, Tammy Faye, used this money for large salaries and bonuses **Ethically Neutral Leadership** Neither strong nor weak ethical leaders. As a result, ethical guidance is not clear. People interpret the leaders silence as the leader not caring how business goals are met. Example: Citigroup Sandy Weill: - Was chairman of the board at Citigroup - An article in Fortune magazine in 2002 described Citigroup as a moneymaking machine that engaged in a number of questionable business practices that allegedly helped Enron hide debt - Afterwards, Weill told Citigroup's board of directors that his most important task would be that Citigroup would now operate at the highest level of ethics and integrity - Weill can be viewed as a ethically neutral leader since he seemed to look the other way and appeared to take notice only after these problems became public **Project Manager Dilemmas** - ***Human Resource Situations:*** Project managers should create environments where people feel appreciated so they do their best work. Issues that could lead to ethical situation include: - *Discrimination* - *Privacy* - *Sexual or other types of harassment* - ***Conflicts of Interest:*** Includes such things as overt or subtle bribes or kickbacks as well as relationships that could question your impartiality. Impartiality can come into question when personal and professional relationships overlap and a conflict of interest can occur. Trust is a key factor in personal and business relationships, and conflicts of interest can weaken trust if special favors are extended to only a special few. Example: A client offers you tickets to the Super Bowl (or some other championship sporting event) if you are willing to reduce the total cost of the project by 10%. - ***Confidence:*** Relationships with project stakeholders require maintaining a strong sense of confidence with respect to such issues as confidentiality, product safety or reliability, truth in advertising, and special fiduciary responsibilities to the client or other project stakeholders. Trust can erode when your fairness, honesty, or respect come into question. Example: You find out from the client that a department within the organization is going to be downsized.  You have a close friend who works in that department, but you've been asked to keep this information confidential - ***Corporate Resources:*** Company resources should only be used for business unless the organization has specific policies. Imagine you are an agent or representative of your organization and your actions can be considered the actions of your organization. This may include your opinions or actions, especially if you use corporate resources such as stationary, business cards, an email address, phones, etc. for personal reasons. Example:  A close friend who worked with you was terminated for taking office supplies without permission.  Now this friend has asked you to write a letter of recommendation on his behalf using company letterhead. **Managing Diversity and Multicultural Projects** The cultural diversity requires project managers to adapt their approach to be in harmony with the preferences and behaviors of stakeholders from these cultures. Failure to do so can lead to misunderstandings about the project's purpose and structure as well as significant difficulties in implementation.  Although an increasing number of IT projects are international, project team members will encounter challenges because of inherent individual differences. Making appropriate adaptations to standard processes, choosing what, how and through whom you communicate with stakeholders may be signal elements in the success or failure of your projects and the Diversity Wheel provides a useful framework for understanding those differences and overcoming those challenges. The Diversity Wheel below provides a tool to better understand individual differences through four different dimensions that represent an individual. It can remind us that even though some people may appear to look like us, they may represent a different culture even within our own country or region. We can then begin to understand how each dimension of the Diversity Wheel influences attitudes, motivations, and behaviors, as well as social and business customs. As a result, we can then not only see how people are different, but also how we might be similar.