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It’s All About Building Bonds Of Trust |
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It’s All About Building Bonds Of Trust Situation: You want a simple way to tell whether you're a good leader. I just finished watching Colin Powell deliver the keynote speech on Leadership at the PMI Global Congress,  North America. He began by touching on his busy day – having just endorsed Barack Obama on Meet the Press this morning. Speaking for well over an hour , including some pretty decent impressions of Arnold Schwartzenegger, Ronald Reagan and others. His presentation was, of course, filled with impressive war stories and he did a good job of relating much of his military experience to Project Management. Early on, he said that prepping for this presentation made it clear to him that he had been a Project Manager all of his life.After many colorful examples and stories he said it all comes down to one thing. “Leadership is all about building bonds of trust – and that’s all I know about Leadership.” He followed that up with, “ you know you’re a good leader when the mission is going bad, men are falling all around you – but your people are still following you.” I thought it was a beautifully simple assessment of what it takes to be a leader. If you look at it one way, he skips over the detail so many of us become preoccupied with - that the leader has great communication skills, paints a clear view of the future, and has all of the other qualities that we have come to expect from a leader. On the other hand, perhaps if you consider General Powell’s trust goal – maybe you cant get there from here without having all the right stuff. What do you think? Is it really that simple?
| Posted: October 20, 2008 01:51 AM |
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Aaron Porter (MBA PMP CSM) says:
While nothing involving people is ever that simple, the details, while important, are not necessary for the point. If you can't build trust with the people who follow you, you can only lead them so far - a hammer only accomplishes so much. Even though I am not sure if the military, where there is a certain amount of "follow orders no matter what" engrained into solders, is the best example for illustrating one's leadership ability, I can see a parallel to project management. A Project Manager not only needs the confidence and trust of those serving under him/her, a Project Manager also needs the trust and confidence of those he/she reports to. Some people will follow orders no matter what, but I think most PMs have experienced roadblocks caused by stakeholders or project team members. It is the details that Powell skips over that make it possible to build the trust needed to get past or avoid the roadblocks. Monday, October 20, 2008 3:55:08 PM EDT
Hans Robbers says:
A leader only exists because of his/her followers. If there are no followers you are alone in the dessert talking to an ocean of sand. So leaders need to bond and build relations. One of main reason people, besides famiy ties, is trust. I very much agree with COlin and Dave it all boils down to trust. Tuesday, October 21, 2008 2:09:21 AM EDT
Naomi Caietti says:
Dave:
STEVE ROLLINS says:
So much of what project managers do in the field is more about behavior management than it is about project management. The same is true for our executives. This is not to disparage project management.
alf06 says:
Please, do us a favour. Publish Colin Powell's speech.
Dave Garrett says:
Hi alf06 - Please Login/Register to leave a comment.
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