Leadership Checklist

John Gardner, in his book On Leadership described Douglas MacArthur as a brilliant strategist, a farsighted administrator, and flamboyant to his fingertips. MacArthur developed a list of questions to guide him in his leadership duties. These principles can be applied to any leadership situation.

 

 

  Do I heckle my subordinates or strengthen and encourage them?

 

  Do I use moral courage in getting rid of subordinates who have proven themselves beyond doubt to be unfit?

 

  Have I done all in my power by encouragement, incentive and spur to salvage the weak and erring?

 

  Do I know by NAME and CHARACTER a maximum number of subordinates for whom I am responsible? Do I know them intimately?

 

  Am I thoroughly familiar with the technique, necessities, objectives and administration of my job?

 

  Do I lose my temper at individuals?

 

  Do I act in such a way as to make my subordinates WANT to follow me?

 

  Do I delegate tasks that should be mine?

 

  Do I arrogate everything to myself and delegate nothing?

 

  Do I develop my subordinates by placing on each one as much responsibility as he can stand?

 

  Am I interested in the personal welfare of each of my subordinates, as if he were a member of my family?

 

  Have I the calmness of voice and manner to inspire confidence, or am I inclined to irascibility and excitability?

 

  Am I a constant example to my subordinates in character, dress, deportment and courtesy?

 

  Am I inclined to be nice to my superiors and mean to my subordinates?

 

  Is my door open to my subordinates?

 

  Do I think more of POSITION than JOB?

 

Do I correct a subordinate in front of others?

 

 

Reflections - Part 1

Woods are lovely dark and deep, u have miles to go before u sleep... @35, I keep thinking about this and wonder, I agree on the first part but somehow I don’t seem to be moving anywhere for the past couple of years, or even if I am somehow it seems to be in the wrong direction. Am i climbing the wrong ladder? Sometimes we are so engrossed in the Busy-ness of life and in climbing the ladder of success, that we seldom realize that we are on the wrong ladder. Is it not time to take a pause, to sharpen the axe?

 

Do everybody get such thoughts, or is it only me? is it because of a dip in my career recently? am i getting philosophical, because of some recent failures on the career front?

 

Whatever the cause may be, or reasons I am thinking of, to blame my current state, the fact remains that I do need to reflect on my career and make corrections

How do i go about? What is the plan of actions?

 

So to go somewhere, I guess first I need to know where I am... I will start of with a SWOT Analysis...

project management proverbs

Below are twenty project management proverbs that show you what can go wrong:

 

You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women. 

 

The same work under the same conditions will be estimated differently by ten different estimators or by one estimator at ten different times. 

 

The most valuable and least used word in a project manager's vocabulary is "NO." 

 

You can con a sucker into committing to an unreasonable deadline, but you can't bully him into meeting it. 

 

The more ridiculous the deadline, the more it costs to try to meet it. 

 

The more desperate the situation, the more optimistic the situatee. 

 

Too few people on a project can't solve the problems—too many create more problems than they solve. 

 

You can freeze the user's specs but he won't stop expecting. 

 

Frozen specs and the abominable snowman are alike: They are both myths, and they both melt when sufficient heat is applied. 

 

The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten, and the promise is remembered. 

 

What you don't know hurts you. 

 

A user will tell you anything you ask about—nothing more. 

 

Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the least convenient one is the only correct one. 

 

What is not on paper has not been said. 

 

No major project is ever installed on time, within budget, with the same staff that started it. 

 

Projects progress quickly until they become 90 percent complete; then they remain at 90 percent complete forever. 

 

If project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress. 

 

No major system is ever completely debugged; attempts to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find. 

 

Project teams detest progress reporting because it vividly demonstrates their lack of progress. 

 

Parkinson and Murphy are alive and well—in your project

Is the document really Reqd?

To determine whether it makes sense to create a document, and if so how far to go with it, consider the following questions:

• Who is going to use this document?
• How are they going to use it?
• What do they expect to see appear in this document?  In what format?
• Who is going to pay for this document?
• What really needs to be said?
• What is the most concise way of saying it?
• What is going to happen if the reader needs more clarification?
• Does an existing document exist that we could fully or partially reference?

 

Time mgmt of your staff

This is from TechRupublic:

Susan Ward, writing in the newsletter Small Business: Canada, identified five personality types that can sabotage time management. They are:

The Fireman — Always handling the latest emergency; has no time to plan.

The Over-Committer — The one who can't say no. Seems like a great person to have around until you realize he or she never completes any of the accepted responsibilities.

The Aquarian — The laid-back persona. Ward warns that there is such as thing as being too "laid-back," "especially when it starts interfering with your ability to finish tasks or bother to return phone calls."

The Chatty Kathy — Usually involved in drawn out conversations with someone (that way they don't have to face some task that awaits them)

The Perfectionist — Is so exacting that projects never seem to get completed

It's one thing to recognize yourself in one of these types and try to take steps to remedy it. But it's quite another to try to manage these personality types if they belong to your staff members. In IT, you're going to run into a lot of "firemen." But that's the nature of the game with a line of work that forces one to be reactive much of the time.

The over-committer can be difficult even if he manages to complete all the tasks he takes on. Once word gets out that he's willing to do anything, people will start lining up to take advantage, believe me. This can throw a wrench into your own task management. You should insist that everyone clear these "favors" through you first. You can say no for the Over-Committer.

The Aquarian is a manager's nightmare because you will have to bear the brunt of the complaints about this person when phone calls go unreturned. Although you can't speed up his metabolism, you can insist on some parameters (give him specific timelines for completion of tasks, etc.) It's best to make the timelines shorter because you don't want to get too far along in a project and realize that little has been done. Also, remember that you don't want to discount the benefits of having such a person on staff — he's probably the one who remains calm when things go haywire.

I've written about the Chatty Kathy type before. I don't believe, as Ward says, that this is a trait that's developed as a way of putting off tasks. I think long-windedness is almost a compulsion with some people. But if it's the former, then you would do well to assign shorter-term (even daily) work deadlines with her. And then make it a point to see that they're met.

The Perfectionist is a hard one to manage. On one side, having someone produce work that's perfect is a great thing. But if the work never really gets completed, then you have a problem. You'll have to check in frequently with this person on his progress. If he's hung up on some detail, he can explain it to you. If the detail is not worth agonizing over, you can insist he move on in the progress.

Purpose of Metrics

To enable effective project management through numbers, we need to capture the right information, which will assist in taking effective decisions. 

The Metrics need to serve the following purposes:

1. early indications of problems,
2. the quality of the products,
3. the effectiveness of the processes,
4. the conformance to the process, and
5. the provision of a basis for future estimation of cost, quality, and schedule