Leadership and Personal Effectiveness

"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." - Stephen R. Covey

The study of leadership has engendered such groundswell of interest in recent time that one cannot but ask, “What is the hullabaloo all about? Well, the hullabaloo is about increasing your effectiveness, it is about developing the mindset and skills required to lead effectively and get immediate benefit in productivity. It is about understanding how small steps can lead to big results.

John C. Maxwell in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, puts it this way, “success is within the reach of just about everyone. But … personal success without leadership ability brings only limited effectiveness. A person’s impact is only a fraction of what it could be with good leadership. The higher you want to climb, the more you need leadership. The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be…”

Leading from where You are

Leadership is every man’s calling. It is God’s original plan that man rules over the works of His hands. Leadership is man’s natural mandate. The mandate is still more relevant in our days now more than ever before. So wherever you find yourself, the instinct to lead is always inherent.

Leadership has been generally defined as the ability to influence others in achieving worthwhile goals. While many myths has been built around the subject leadership, this write-up is intended to help readers in realizing that not only can they lead, they can do it wherever they find themselves in life; most especially in corporate organizations.

The big and controversial question has always been “are leaders born or made”? While it is generally agreed that leadership traits are inborn, many have come to agree that leadership can be learnt.

Project Management and Leadership Skills

The leadership development level of a project manager is important to a successful project. Effective leadership skills must be used as needed over the project life cycle.

Project managers are responsible for project delivery and consequently are uniquely placed to make a positive or negative impact. Whilst understanding project management methodologies, tools, and techniques is important, the critical test is being able to apply them in practice. This is where leadership skills and behaviours become critical -- as the project manager leads the project team to meet the objectives

Project Management and Leadership: Equal Partners for Project Success

The Four Project Management Processes of Leadership and Management

“Leaders are people oriented, whereas managers are task oriented.

Leaders inspire, whereas managers organize.” - The Realities of Management: A view from the Trenches, Royce L. Callaway

We as project management professionals are all aware of the management aspects of our profession. These include the tasks, processes, and sequences of steps that we all know by heart. However, client feedback and our own self-evaluations or “lessons learned” tell us that we should be addressing an often neglected thou equally important demand of our profession. That demand is Leadership.