I’ve heard and read a lot about leadership and management. When it comes to projects, I can’t help but feel leadership is an overrated concept; something that is really only required by employees at low-level positions; people who need something to believe in because their jobs don’t provide fulfillment. I also think that a project team (or an organization, for that matter) that has good management, without leadership, will do better than one that has good leadership, without management.
Why? Look at how leadership is defined. Leadership is responsible for establishing direction, aligning people and motivating and inspiring. You can duplicate all of those through management – setting objectives and creating strategy and vision, coordinating resources and defining relationships and communicating expectations. Leadership however, will virtually never be able to plan and budget, organize and staff, or control and problem solve. Even if a project team or organization built on leadership is successful, it will never be as efficient (and therefore competitive or profitable) as one that is well managed.
I would like to bring up the idea that a team of professional workers, who are experts in their functional areas, don’t require leadership or motivation. These individuals need management to coordinate their efforts and provide support and resources to their activities. As a matter of fact, if this was a team of people that required "motivation, direction and guidance" (a common definition of leadership), I’m not sure that want them on my team (who wants to have to constantly “lead” people?).
From one of my textbooks: “Leaders use inspiration, charisma and inherent excitement…to motivate others.” That sounds like nothing more than a sales pitch to me. Can’t we have a team of rational people who are able to deliver results and adapt because they recognize it’s necessary, and because they have the will to succeed; not because they have a cheerleader touting the “inherent excitement” of the change or the project?
This is not to say leadership is never necessary; it has its place. In the military, or on sports teams, when bullets are flying by and mortars are falling, true leadership can bond people together and help them focus on meeting that one single objective. But when it comes to executing in a professional environment, I know who I want on my team: intelligent, consummate professionals who are driven by achievement and need management support to accomplish their tasks, not a leader.
