Use situational theory with staff every time you give them a new task to perform. If you’ve ever been on a middle managers’ leadership course there is a good chance that you are familiar with Ken Blanchard’s and Paul Hersey’s situational leadership theory. It’s widely used by trainers and popular with managers because it provides…
Tag: Leadership
Action Centered Leadership – Leadership Theories Series
Use action centered leadership to remind you that you have to continually balance the needs of the task, the team and the individual and that on occasions you will have to emphasize the needs of one over the other two. John Adair’s action centered leadership model contains elements of both style and contingency theory. He…
Leadership Grid – Leadership Theories Series
Use the leadership grid to confirm your preferred leadership style while recognizing that you can change your style as circumstances require. Blake and Mouton built upon basic style theory and produced their leadership grid. The grid identifies how much concern the leader has for getting the job done (task-centered) and for their staff (person-centered). They…
Basic Style Theory – Leadership Theories Series
Use basic style theory to identify your default leadership style: are you a task or person-oriented person? In the 1940s the University of Michigan suggested that leadership behavior could be described as either person or task oriented. Person oriented leaders are concerned with maintaining good relationships with staff and believe in a participative and democratic…
Trait Theory – Leadership Theories Series
Use trait theory to identify the key traits that you need to exhibit consistently if you wish to be considered a leader. The origins of trait theory are unknown but its purpose is simple. It tries to identify the innate characteristics that distinguish leaders from followers. Unfortunately, over a century of research has failed to reveal…
How to lead people, 12 leadership theories you should know and use
So why take advantage of leadership theories? The word lead means ‘to guide on a way by going in advance’ (Longman New Universal Dictionary). So its safe to say that leading involves taking someone on a journey from their current position to somewhere else. The journey can be physical as when Moses led the Israelites…
Managing Upward Relations Like A Boss
Research consistently points out that project success is strongly affected by the degree to which a project has the support of top management and that ties directly into your ability to handle managing upward relations. Such support is reflected in an appropriate budget, responsiveness to unexpected needs, and a clear signal to others in the…
Influence as Currency Exchange
To successfully manage a project, a manager must build a cooperative network among divergent allies and make use of their influence. Networks are mutually beneficial alliances that are generally governed by the law of reciprocity. The basic principle is that “one good deed deserves another, and likewise, one bad deed deserves another.” The primary way…
Managing versus Leading a Project
I will begin with a brief discussion on managing versus leading a project. Then in a subsequent article I will move to tackle the importance of managing project stakeholders. I couldn’t wait to be the manager of my own project and run the project the way I thought it should be done. Boy, did I…