Leadership Caffeine: Supporting the Rise of the Informal Leader
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leading Change, Performance, Product Management, Project Management
Want to know where to find your best and brightest emerging leaders? Here’s a hint, you’ll have to use your peripheral vision to see them, because they are moving sideways at a high rate of speed.
The Rise of the Informal Leader:
While it’s unlikely that hierarchical leadership will disappear anytime soon from our long-standing organizational models, it is my opinion that we’ve entered an era characterized by the rise of the informal leader.
The ever-shrinking middle layer of management has been replaced by a variety of different individuals fulfilling roles as project and product and team leaders. Their titles say, “manager,” but the real meaning is something like, “tons of responsibility and no authority.”
These Informal Leaders are the ones busy getting work done through and with others by marshaling resources, building coalitions and cutting through the organizational crap that slows many functional leaders to a “protect my turf” crawl.
Informal Leaders are often on a mission to change the world and improve their organizations for the better. They are organizational and initiative focused zealots with the passion and confidence necessary for success.
Existing leaders will be well served to cultivate an Informal Leader culture and class to cope with the prevailing market forces. The need for speed, flexibility and adaptability have never been greater, and the better your people are at traversing functional boundaries to “get stuff done,” the better your odds of success.
And for those seeking to strengthen and grow your careers, instead of looking up the organizational ladder, it’s time to rethink your view of success and start looking sideways as the best way to make a difference.
7 Ideas for Cultivating Informal Leaders in Your Organization:
1. Give your people room to run beyond your boundaries. Hell, encourage them to run. Don’t create artificial silo or turf barriers for your people. You will succeed if your people are encouraged to create value and build coalitions across the organization.
2. Use your functional power to broker alliances with peers that pave the way for people and teams to tackle the big issues of the day. Actively encourage teams to work to solve problems across boundaries and you will be supporting the development of an Informal Leader culture. Those with passion and skills will take the opportunity to grab these initiatives.
3. If your culture is already project centric, recognize that great project management has two components: the tools of the trade and the socio-cultural (people) issues. You can be mechanically sound and still fail. Invest in strengthening people skills to improve your chances of success. Don’t assume that people know how to collaborate. I see far too many cross-functional initiatives reduced to “debating societies” to be comfortable assuming that people truly get how to collaborate for results. Provide resources and coaching to teach teams and Informal Leaders how to succeed.
4. Change at the top to promote growth across the organization. Current leaders need to learn what it means to effectively sponsor working teams. Those at the top of the ladder (yeah, there is still hierarchy) need to consistently model the right behaviors for cross-functional and Informal Leader success.
5. Design developmental assignments to push people into informal leadership roles. Ensure that assignments challenge individuals to quickly form relationships and guide groups towards problem resolution. Ensure an ample flow of feedback from participants and stakeholders, and provide a reasonable blend of skills development in areas such as: communication, negotiation, critical thinking and facilitation.
6. Engage Informal Leaders in the strategy processes of the firm. Too often, the people driving progress are simply “receivers” of direction. This devalues their understanding of talent, organizational capabilities and their tremendous insights and lessons learned along the way.
7. Create diversity in your upcoming Informal Leader ranks. Far too many organizations create “project managers” out of just their technical professionals. While cautious to generalize, many of these same organizations end up with a project management culture that is mechanically excellent but truly weak on the soft, people side of the equation. Draw from and build informal leaders in all areas of the organization.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The issue of building a powerful Informal Leader culture transcends the topic of project management. This is neither a functional nor a vocational issue as much as it is about building an environment that works effectively in this challenging and ever-changing world.
I see successes all of the time, although they tend to emerge due to the tenacity of one or more passionate individuals, rather than through a deliberate development process. The challenge now is to find ways to deliberately develop an Informal Leader class and quit relying on its emergence by accident.
Management Excellence Book Series: Power by Jeffrey Pfeffer
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth
Power and influence are topics in the workplace that everyone recognizes but that few talk about. I suspect that after reading Jeffrey Pfeffer’s newest book, Power (available 9/14), this will change.
Pfeffer does a great job drawing the topic out, making it relevant and then politely suggesting that we ignore the development of our own influence…and ultimately, our power, at our own career peril. The book is filled with good examples, practical guidance, and I suspect for some people, eye-opening perspectives on why you should care about cultivating your influence.
I posted recently on this topic in a Leadership Caffeine piece, entitled: “The Noble Pursuit of Power and Influence,” which was in part inspired by a cover-to-cover reading of Jeffrey’s book. The topic is easily misconstrued and even inappropriately linked to the many ethics and legal violations that we’ve seen from too many leaders during the past decade. The comments and feedback on the post reflect both the recognition of the importance of the topic and some of the angst that we have over those that actively and overtly pursue power. At the risk of being redundant, I suspect that “Power” will help move the conversation towards the positive.
My bottom-line: this is an important “Why” and “How” guidebook for the modern professional.
Enjoy the conversation!
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Disclosure: a copy of the book was provided at no charge for my review.
Don't Expect Easy-My Top 15 Suggestions for Coping as a Professional
“Easy” is not a term that should be on your mind, except when it comes to improving the experience for your customers. Outside of making life easier for your customers, there are few circumstances where “easy” shows up or where you are justified in expecting things to go that way.
If you’re at the early stage of your career, the transition from home to school to job is an interesting one. If you are a recent graduate, chance are that you’ve already discovered that things aren’t so easy in this economy as you pound the pavement looking for a job. While this awkward phase will pass in time, your immersion in the workforce will underscore why “easy” is a foreign term.
And of course, if you’ve been around the block a few times, you’ve already discovered that “easy” is rare indeed.
Things That Are Most Definitely Not Easy in Business:
- Working for a difficult boss
- Becoming a boss
- Becoming a good boss
- Finding great people
- Hiring the right people
- Undoing the process of hiring the wrong people
- Competing in the market
- Competing internally
- Leading without authority
- Creating a new strategy
- Implementing a new strategy
- Getting others to follow
- Following
- Making mistakes
- Learning from mistakes
- Developing as a senior contributor
- Switching jobs
- Switching careers
- Continuing your education
- Reinventing yourself
- Balancing life and work
Guidance-My Top 15 Suggestions for Coping with “Not Easy”
- I’ve known a few people that seemed to have a free-pass through life’s difficulties, but for the rest of us, here are my suggestions and words of encouragement:
- Attitude is everything. Make certain that yours stays positive about the challenges in front of you.
- There is no substitute for hard work. Keep pushing the rock.
- Success is in the details. Don’t be a 70-percenter. Learn to finish.
- It’s all about learning. Mistakes are your best teachers, just don’t make the same ones over and over again.
- As my former boss would say, “Man plans and god laughs.” Interpret that to mean that things mostly don’t go as you expect them to.
- Hope is a crappy strategy. See also the note on hard work.
- You’ll make mistakes. Don’t wallow for more than a few minutes. Then shrug your shoulders and move on to your next challenge.
- There are no guarantees. There are no guarantees of how long any of us will be here, much less guarantees of employment and advancement.
- You’ll have to work for everything you get. Get over it.
- Fear is the mind-killer. I love that quote from Frank Herbert. Don’t let fear rule your life.
- Measure-twice and cut once. An extra emphasis on quality will serve you well.
- Compensation is nice. Ultimately enough is enough. It’s a hollow goal to just chase the money.
- The joy is in the journey, not the destination.
- Touch people in the right way during your journey. You go through this once. Make it count.
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Notes from Art:
-Don’t miss the latest issue of the Management Excellence Newsletter. Register at Building Better Leaders or Management Excellence (far right column)
-Just announced: The Management Excellence Book Series, with episode #1 featuring an interview with Bob Sutton, author of Good Boss, Bad Boss.
Art to Help Kick-Off Project Leadership Forum at Harrisburg University
Filed under: Leadership, Performance, Professional Growth, Project Management
As a long-time, self-described zealot for the importance of project managers developing as leaders, imagine how excited I was to learn about a conference devoted to just this topic! I’ve written at length in this blog (Learning to Lead in the Project Focused World and others) and even offered up my e-book, Leadership and the Project Manager, in support of this concept.
I’m even more excited to be a part of the conference as a guest keynote as the Project Leadership Forum kicks-off on Thursday in Harrisburg, PA.
From the release: The 2010 forum focuses on how to increase projects’ ROI by using leadership practices to influence results and reduce failure rates.
I suppose in true zealot fashion, if I were writing the release, I might trumpet something to the effect that great project managers….that have developed and practice as effective leaders are THE X factor in project success!
I might go on to talk about the remarkable opportunities that firms have to create value, improve performance, improve the effectiveness of strategy execution, grow talent, foster learning and innovation and cure several other common managerial and organizational ailments if they develop effective project leadership cultures.
And finally, I would likely challenge executives to wake-up and recognize and support the opportunities to improve in this area, and I would cheer on project managers to seize the day and grow their careers and increase their value to their firms by developing as leaders.
Of course, to hear all of that and much more, you would have to join us in Harrisburg, PA at the University on Thursday, May 11. The line-up of guests, case studies and break-out sessions is certain to inspire and motivate anyone that is interested in strengthening project performance!
Congratulations to the great professionals at Harrisburg University for recognizing the value in this important topic and to Jennifer Reiner, the Director of Strategic Program Management and the team for devoting their energy to producing this exciting event!
Enjoy Being Part of the Gang? Better Not Lead.
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Decision-Making, Leadership, Professional Growth
One of the rude awakenings for leaders promoted from within a team is the uncomfortable recognition that the easy camaraderie of the pre-promotion days immediately gives way to an awkward distancing of relationships.
Congratulations on your promotion. Oh, and you’re no longer part of the gang!
I’ve counseled early career leaders on this topic and one of the most difficult parts of their transition from team member to team leader is the sudden feeling of loneliness.
“I’m still the same person,” they tell me emphatically. “I can separate work from the social discussions at lunch or over a beer after work,” they add.
“Yes you are,” and “No you cannot,” I respond.
The bad news is that close “out of work” relationships (let’s stop at friendships and skip the Pandora’s box of workplace romances for now) will also change. Maybe not immediately, but at some point, you will make a decision that will upset your friend(s) and the reality of your position will become painfully visible to all parties.
The good news is that you’ll go to lunch again…with your team members and also with your new peers. However, it will never be the same. As a leader, you are no longer part of the gang. That is as it should be.
Here are a few reasons why:
- You now have a vote…in some cases a big vote in the fortunes of your colleagues. From simple decisions on assignments and projects to large decisions on promotions and even terminations, you now have influence over the lives of your colleagues.
- See the point above. Everyone knows it.
- Your new role has very explicit responsibilities and a degree of objectivity is required for successful execution of your role.
- You must be comfortable supporting and coaching your team members, and that includes conducting tough discussions. While some might argue that this is what friends are for, let’s face it, it is remarkably awkward to have to tell your friend that her behavior is impacting her career and the output of the team and here’s how it needs to change.
- You need to earn respect and grow your credibility as a leader. That’s not happening at the bar after work or as you sit around and join the group commiseration over the bad habits of the boss. Hey, you’re the boss!
- You’ve taken a step in your career. Like leaving the comfort of high school and home for the foreign experience of college, you’ve embarked on a new journey for destinations unknown. Change is part of the equation.
The Bottom-Line:
I will reiterate that you can still find fun and cultivate effective professional relationships as a leader, and of course, you should. However, if this role is right for you, it’s necessary to leave behind some of the vestiges of your early career. One is being part of the gang.
As a postscript, it’s not uncommon to run into more experienced managers that still try to play the “Hey, I’m just a person here, not your boss” card, and it always smells rotten to me. Don’t believe them. I’ve known more than a few people that ended up on the wrong side of their “buddy’s” decision and wondered what hit them.
Want to command respect as a leader. Start acting like one from day one.
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