Do You Need a Good Leader?

First you have to persuade the CEOs to agree to a program to find somebody better than them. How can they do that, they already know that they are the best.

Interesting points PG.

Given; "Shackleton, who had to abandon his ship, the Endurance, trapped in the ice of the Antarctic waters, in November 1915 and then led one of the most famous and dangerous missions in history to rescue his crew"

I wonder if anyone suggested a "Great Leader" would not get his company stuck.

As usual "heroic crisis management" seems to be more valued than Avoiding Crisis Management.

I believe you don't quite understand....if you avoid risk, you avoid crisis, you may as well stay home.....and play it safe......p911

Ummm - oddly one of my nefarious activities is facilitating corporate/project management, crisis avoidance by understanding 'cause and effect' of the decision making process.

AKA the skills/value/discipline, of obtaining the correct and relevant information and necessity of performing an unbiased ranking process.

"risk" is what people take when they have not done the diligence and proper evaluation.

Having read you - for some time - I know you don't act "AKA" free. Are in fact quite skilled.

I.e. It may seem like 'risk' to others - but you know it's not, have made 'king sure it's not.

So; as for "I believe you don't quite understand ...." as you wish.

Risk is there in all projects from cradle to grave. Its deeming what is an acceptable risk that determines a leader. One cannot eliminate it totally.

Example;

A 7 figure project is presented for quotation of which there is approx. 6 month lead time for the quote to be due.

The company pursues this and after 6 months the contract is due in 2 weeks and 80% of the details is worked out and the 20% is unknown (I'm just pulling these numbers for an example) Now the 20% shows a great risk due to unknowns through variables but the company has empirical data that it has handled these risks before and even though they are unknown the company adjusts the quotation to this risks.

Can you eliminate the risks, no and anyone that says they can have not the experience and I would question their ability. Now with that being said, a good PM can make the risks manageable.

Is this foolish, each company is different, but the choices are. Take the risk and keep the cask flow going (along with profitability) or lay off due to lack of orders. As a businessman that is a simple decision.

Now since you have project management background you must realize that risk is there from cradle to grave.....always, and not recognizing that is foolish.

Now to the topic of this thread. Do You Need a Good Leader?

What makes a good leader?

Its not the person that boldly goes where no man has gone before.

But the person who looks at the project, and even if there is 95% confidence, a true leader can recognize that the 5% of the risk is too great for the company and its stakeholders and turns it away, while takes on a project where there is 20% risk but is within the company's structure, culture and experience to make it acceptable.

p911

Risk/reward.

Perhaps the need is to go back a step to the search committee and the "rewards committee". The CEO is going to receive several messages from the board on the subject of objectives, but the one that carries most weight is the one on rewards. If his rewards are highest for today's stock price, it does no good to tell him that the goals are for long term growth.

We need some trainers for the compensation committee.

that is the problem we had in the banking and investment. They looked at short term goals that the true effects are not fully realize until the CEO have long been gone.

Its the true leader that does the right thing for the long term positive direction and health of the company.......Bernie Madoff and Enron shows what CEO's who cave in to the greed.

We need some trainers for the compensation committee.

No we don't. Bonuses should not be doled out immediately or without a ceiling. But it should be based on true performance and not what was produce. And by produced I mean short term profits.

IMO

p911

Like to add one more thing;

This is what is misunderstood the importance of performance over producing is. And performance you can look at it that was stated earlier about a person that has drive but all of his projects failed. Look into it on how it failed.

If it was headed to failure all along did this person cut the loses of what it could have been.....i.e. any one else would they have lost $1,000,000.00 in stead of $100,000.00 ^{(just numbers I laying out here)} . There are those that would look at it as both being failures.....but is it?

Sometimes as a project manager (especially when brought into midstream of a project) its damage control.

As a business you do not want to be in the red. But there are times when you are for a variety of reasons.

p911

There is RISK in everything we do.

You can do all the diligence and proper evaluation you want, but there is still RISK no matter how small.

To forge ahead after all that is done, believing there is Absolutely No Risk at all , is pure Ignorance.

If you have all leaders and no followers, who does the work?

I look at it as sheep and shepards......but beware of the wolf in sheeps clothing.

Ok - "Do You Need a Good Leader?"

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish explorer who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest South latitude at 88°23'S, 97 geographical miles (114 statute miles, 190 km) from the South Pole, by far the closest convergence in exploration history up to that time. For this achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.

After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying—the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. Disaster struck this expedition when its ship, Endurance, was trapped in pack ice and slowly crushed, before the shore parties could be landed. There followed a sequence of exploits, and an ultimate escape with no lives lost, that would eventually assure Shackleton's heroic status, although this was not immediately evident.^[1] In 1921 he went back to the Antarctic with the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, intending to carry out a programme of scientific and survey activities. Before the expedition could begin this work Shackleton died of a heart attack while his ship, Quest, was moored in South Georgia. At his wife's request he was buried there.

Away from his expeditions, Shackleton's life was generally restless and unfulfilled. In his search for rapid pathways to wealth and security he launched many business ventures and other money-making schemes, none of which prospered. His financial affairs were generally muddled; when he died, he owed over £40,000 (more than £1.5 million in 2008 terms).^[2] On his death he was lauded in the press, but was thereafter largely forgotten, while the heroic reputation of his rival Scott was sustained for many decades. At the end of the 20th century Shackleton was "rediscovered",^[3] and rapidly became a cult figure, a role model for leadership as one who, in extreme circumstances, kept his team together to accomplish a survival story which polar historian Stephanie Barczewski describes as "incredible".^[4]

Care to evaluate?

evaluate, one may learn from others mistakes, but it is hard because I was not put in Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton postion. So I'll try....

yes, it was a risk that was doomed......

I like to compare it to another voyage.

Columbus's voyage was also a risk.

There is going to be failure's, due to misjudgement, acts of nature, victim of circumstance, But life goes on.......

Hell when one does something that is risky, what does one learn from it. I have always said, "Ones worst experience is usually your best.....but it may not seem that way at the time."

Have you ever done something that failed, or have outcomes (good or bad) that you did not expect?

Here's a choice, You have to decide on (2) people for your team.

One is highly intelligent, can recite pages and discriptions out of a engineering dictionary, can spew formulas and proceedures that can impress anyone, but...... has never been in a real life situation.

or

Number Two, one who's only degree he got, was from the school of hard knocks. (and the hard knocks are his own) A person that started in the trenches on a projects worked his way up and realizing each decision has a cause and effect and actually understands the reasoning of the effects.

My choice in this scenerio I would want number two on my team.

p911

Indeed.

How close to the top of your evaluation do you put "roots of motivation".

I.e. using the topic example and yours; would "redemption" or "ambition" be ranked higher as indicative of superior risk/crisis anticipation skills?

And what of the third choice for your team; the 'driven' guy who has consistently failed every venture?

And what of the third choice for your team;

that was not part of the choice, and you seemed to missed the point which is not too uncommon for failure. But to answer your third choice.

The two choices I gave I had both good quality's and bad quality's, you have to weigh both aspects to make ones decisions, not just the good aspects, you take in consideration of the bad, as a project manager, the response should have been questions more in-depth and not respond with more scenario's. Why, because we have dead lines.

For number one case, background. What is his educational background, his references, his nature or demeanor, can people work with him.

In the number two case, what was the projects he worked on. what part did he play, how is his judgement on the calls he had to make, and the reason why he had to make them.

As far as the choice you added for the third.

And what of the third choice for your team; the 'driven' guy who has consistently failed every venture?

What was the failure? did he inherit a project that was doomed? Illness? Was it poorly managed? incompetent personal? limited/inadequate resources to actually do the job? no one else would take it?.....its not al black and white, 1's and 0's, yes/no, it is a decision not to be made by the incompetent.

This is what IMO makes a leader, one that not only looks at the cover of the book, but actually opens the book.......and acts.

p911

"that was not part of the choice", and "you seemed to missed the point which is not too uncommon for failure"

As per my first post, my point has been the efficacy of a role play and 2nd guessing of Shackleton, as a management learning scenario focused on events after it had (inexplicably) become a crisis, because it was then 'heroic leader' gets out of jail.

My position being; at least you have to backtrack the 'leadership' process to the short list for Expedition Leader, (including Shackleton by default in the scenario).

This then produces a totally different set of 'leadership' lessons.

Then the facilitation question becomes; what value is "totally predictable", compared to a scenario potential leaders actually have to pull apart to find the lessons?

To wit; you have declined to consider 'candidate 3' from the outset - so what value is this scenario in identifying or grooming leadership potential?

ZIP, other than a "Good Leader" is going to spend the day/s thinking WTF am I doing here?

& just to make it clear; I'm usually quite ambivalent about what these 'management theater seminar' folks do. This one just niggled a bit, as I'd say the client went backwards. Gains are possibly the bit of editorial (mostly promoting the facilitator) and the 'rollicking good time' had by them.

Right now I am watching the US vs. Angola quarter finals basketball game.

All the kids are stars on their own teams - great athletes. There are two senior players, Chauncy Billups & Lamar Odom. I don't think there are any better senior players to lead the young guys than those two.

No ego problems with either Billups or Odom and 100% team players all their years.

Because of their leadership the team is doing great.

Similar with the Turkish team. Hidayet Turkoglu is the leader but not taking any more shots than he needs to and helping everyone. Again he is a journeyman player with many years behind him and leading.

With young guys (early 20's) it is easy for them to get off track during the game. The senior guys (in the 30's) are leading the way.

Russ

very good example. put selfishness aside and act for what is for the overall best.