3-D leadership

Leadership is power. Leadership is control. Effective project leadership today, however, is not your exercise of power and control over others. Insteadit is your ability to influence people to exercise power and control over themselves.

An avalanche of change has bombarded business in the last ten years. Over that time, the leadership power base has changed dramatically. Only after you know and understand the change can you lead your project to success. This article will introduce you to that insight, including the concept of leaderfull^* teamwork.

THE ONE-DIMENSIONAL LEADER

Most of us are familiar with a one-dimensional approach to leadership. In this approach, every group has one, and only one, clear leader; everyone else is a follower. The one-dimensional leader is expected to have all the answers. Therefore, the leader takes charge, sets the strategy, formulates goals, establishes priorities, and makes the “hard” decisions. As a result, the “check with” mentality is alive and well in groups led by one-dimensional leaders.

The one-dimensional leader shoulders all responsibility and accountability for performance. To be successful, the one-dimensional leader only has to be concerned with getting performance, not inspiring performance. Because one-dimensional leaders existed historically in functional silos, their key concern was typically limited only to their narrow functional performance. They just did their work and “threw it over the wall” to the next function in the production chain.

The singlefunction world in which the one-dimensional leader once thrived no longer exists. In today's fast-change, complex project environment, the one-dimensional leader is a dinosaur. Dinosaurs became extinct because the world changed and they did not. Let's take a look at today's new project environment, and then let's look at how leadership must change to thrive in it.

THREE-DIMENSIONAL PROJECTS

No matter how different its work, every project is complex in three key ways: the work, the relationships, and the result.

The Work

The first level of complexity is the work itself. Think about pharmaceuticals. In the days of the Wild West, anyone could pick a few herbs, place them in ajar of water or alcohol, and sell them as a miracle cure for just about “anything that ails you”-even if it didn't!

Today, new drugs come to market only after hundreds of people and millions of dollars have poured into exhaustive research, testing, and FDA approval. In fact, the process is so lengthy and complex that even aspirin would have a difficult time passing the rigor today's new drugs undergo.

In the global marketplace, Lone Rangers are not smart enough, fast enough, or powerful enough to compete with an effective cross-functional project team. A top result takes many people, from many functional areas, working effectively together.

The Relationships

The second level of complexity is the relationships of the people. Take Ford's “Quality is Job #l” initiative which brought executives, managers, assembly workers, and many functions together to streamline processes and improve quality.

It was not enough for Ford's diverse groups to cooperate or just share ideas. Without trust and rapport, it is too easy for people to reject each other's ideas. To be effective diverse groups must collaborate and benefit from their multiple perspectives. Their success rests on an open sharing of ideas, a willingness to listen, and a desire to work together.

Relationships let people develop trust and rapport, so that they can communicate openly and effectively. Therefore, it is clear that relationships are not just “nice to have.” They are a “need to have” critical part of high performance.

The Result

The third level of complexity is the pressure for top performance. Today's quality standards, combined with the need for breakneck speed, really puts teams to the test.

One story of the legendary Lee Iacocca illustrates this concept. He saw a “hot” market opportunity to introduce a Chrysler convertible-top automobile. Management told him it would take two years to develop a prototype. Iacocca didn't want it in two years. He wanted it the next day. Iacocca personally took one completed car off the assembly line, had the roof cut off, and a prototype ready—in 24 hours!

Project teams need to be creative in breaking down slow and ineffective barriers to speed and quality. If they are not, their competitors will rush in to seize the market window. Iacocca did what project teams need to do-break barriers that hold back the result.

Many project leaders have one more challenge to producing a top result: virtual teamwork. Virtual project teams are made of members who are not co-located. Instead, they include people who work across distance, such as customers, suppliers, strategic partners, and others at distant locations in one company. Producing a top result with people and production out of sight adds even greater complexity to project challenges!

THE LEADERSHIP GAP

Nearly every business book on high performance and organizational change talks about the scarcity of leadership. They are right, but none of their authors go far enough. There are significant new leadership gaps on projects, different than what has yet been advocated.

The first gap is the myth of a single-leader team. In the Industrial Age, single-function groups had one leader, who typically was also the boss of the people in that group. Because work was done at one site, progress was visible to everyone, including the leader. A great deal of the leader's power and support was anchored in the hierarchy.

In the Information Age, project teams are multi-functional. Because the project operates in a matrix organization, few on the team report directly to the project leader. Instead, they report to someone else, who may have priorities other than those of the team. Work may be done across several locations, making people and progress difficult to see. Very little of the team leader's power and support is founded in the hierarchy.

Therefore, the real leadership gap is in the whole single-leader approach. Multifunction project teams need more leadership than any individual leader can unilaterally provide. To fill the gap, they need a resource pool of leadership from everyone on the team.

The other leadership gap is the trend toward self-managed work teams (SMWT), where no one is the official leader. Has the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction, creating a gap of no designated leader in a group? Why do groups feel the need to say, “No one is in charge; we all are”? There is a place in business for SMWT, but not where top results, quality, and speed are needed now. Quality with speed requires more than self-management of the task. It requires inspired leadership

3-D LEADERSHIP

Three-dimensional leaders inspire top results by being well-rounded in three key ways: self-leadership, team leadership, and leaderfull teamwork.

Since a great deal of information is available on the first two dimensions, we will only cover them briefly here. Most attention is given to the third dimension, leaderfull teamwork.

1st Dimension: Self

Know yourself. Effective leadership begins with introspection. Before you can effectively lead anyone else, you need a clear understanding of your values, especially those by which you lead others. The values must be so crystal clear that you reflect them consistently in your every word or action. Leaders who stand for clear principles never waffle on their values.

2nd Dimension: Team

Know how others see you. As team leader, you are the role model for the way you want others to communicate and act. You are the facilitator of action and the conduit by which the team evolves to high performance. Most research shows that leaders perceive their performance more favorably than will the members of their team. For that reason, effective project leaders get individual and group feedback regularly on leadership strengths and weaknesses.

One of the most important facets of second-dimension leadership is to ensure the team has a clear, compelling direction (see PMNETwork, February 1993) and that people develop trust and rapport with each other (see PMNETwork, May 1993).

3rd Dimension: Leaderfull Teamwork

Make the team leaderfull by developing leadership in others. Leaderfull teams have an appointed leader, but they go another step forward. Leaderfull teams aggressively develop and nurture leadership throughout the team. Everyone on the project team takes a leadership role in monitoring and acting on factors that impact the result. In leaderfull terms, the concept of follower does not apply.

Nordstrom's, well known for its outstanding service, is an excellent example of leaderfull teamwork. Nordstrom's success has thrived on the leadership it expects of its leaderfull sales professionals. Nordstrom's employee handbook, which is only seven sentences long, reflects the expectation of that leadership:

We're glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them. Nordstrom Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager or division general manager any question at any time.

Every Nordstrom sales professional takes a leadership role in ensuring customer satisfaction. They do not just sell goods. Instead, they take the initiative to do whatever is needed to build relationships and create loyal customers. Their sales professionals consistently go the extra mile. Some have even been known to send flowers to hospitalized regular customers, at company expense—without management approval. A “check with” process is not needed.

The suggestion in leaderfull teamwork is not to turn people loose to do whatever they feel like doing on the project. Instead, leaderfull team members’ actions are focused on a very clear understanding of the team's clear, compelling direction (priority). Training and coaching help team members grow in their leadership skills. Clear roles and accountability for results make team members personally responsible for results. Whether your project team is a sales team or an engineering team, these same principles apply.

Leaderfull teamwork has seven dimensions (see box): boundary manager, growth coach, communication mentor, barrier buster, energizer, empowerer, leadership role model. In complex projects, no single leader can unilaterally monitor and act on all seven of these factors. Instead, 3-D (third dimension) leaders rely on everyone on the team to take a leadership role in acting or communicating on them, as needed for success.

Consider the growth coach dimension. Projects constantly demand new skills and learning. Both the project leader and the leaderfull team members create an open forum to discuss and act on professional growth that enhances the project. However, both the leader and the leaderfull team members take an active role in monitoring and acting on their professional growth needs.

The seven leaderfull dimensions, therefore, are not just factors for the leader to monitor. Both the team leader and the team members are responsible for jointly communicating about them and acting on them, as needed. These seven factors make everyone accountable, individually and collectively, for fostering growth, learning, and results.

INSPIRED PEOPLE AND PERFORMANCE

Three-dimensional leadership fills a leadership gap that plagues most projects. An appointed principled leader is critical to every high-performance project team. The concept of follower, however, is obsolete. Project success requires 3-D leadership, including leaderfull teamwork.

Leaderfull teamwork makes everyone on the project responsible for identifying, communicating, and acting on the seven functions that impact the result.

Leaderfull teamwork turns a project team into a high-learning, high-communication environment where everyone takes a leadership role in ensuring the project's success. It creates a team of leaders that jointly focus on attaining the team's clear, compelling direction. It inspires people by catering to their need to have greater personal power and control in contributing to the team's success.

Dr. Jaclyn Kostner is president of Bridge the Distance (Denver), an international training and consulting firm that specializes in leadership and high-performance single-site and virtual (multisite) project management teams.

Christy Strbiak is a senior partner with Telesis (Denver), a training and consulting firm that specializes in the human aspect of quality management, including integrating leadership and team skills with TQM.