My theories of what leadership and management are

2019-09-24

I’ve read The Mythical Man Month and The Phoenix Project recently. They’re both excellent, and have a surprising amount in common despite the 30-odd year gap between their publication. In particular, both are apparently about IT but are actually about management and leadership.

As I was coming to the end of The Mythical Man Month, I realised that I have quite well developed theories about what leadership, team management, and person management are. The lists are unordered, as they were scribbled in a Kindle note as I was finishing a chapter.

I took my first leadership role at the beginning of 2019, and I was surprised to discover quite how much of management and leadership involves gaining a deeper understanding of yourself, which is reflected in the list. If you want a really good illustration of this, I’d recommend listening to the Shadowed Qualities episode of Gimlet’s Start Up podcast. As an aside, I think this podcast might sit perfectly at the intersection of business journalism and poetry.

Without further ado, I present my credo:

Leadership

• Developing and articulating vision
• Correspondingly, helping the organisation to prioritise
• Understanding the team’s, and organisation’s, strengths and weaknesses
• Facilitating communication, creativity, and decision making
• Acting with courage
• Resolving conflict productively

Team management

• Upholding agreements the team has made, to themselves and to others
• Modelling the team’s ideal behaviour standards
• Protecting the team’s time and attention
• Acquiring and defending resources the team needs
• Promoting the team’s good work to the rest of the organisation
• Facilitating the organising and scheduling of work
• Facilitating goal-setting

Person management

• Providing feedback
• Listening openly and responding to questions humanly
• Setting expectations
• Enabling personal development