Peter speaking at the APM Rethinking Leadership conference

This is a guest post by Peter Parkes, author of NLP for Project Managers.

I recently found myself walking away from a project and used an NLP technique to help identify the root cause of my decision.  At the same time I identified some lessons for leadership styles for project management.

Understanding how we got here

A lot of NLP originated out of the language patterns observed in therapy, and one of the contributors was Fritz Perls, the originator of ‘Gestalt’ therapy.  Although we can organise events along a time-line, we also tend to group events according to association, where the association is sometimes lost from the conscious mind.  Often we are not reacting to the most recent event, but the history of events, or cumulative learning.  Have you ever found yourself over-reacting to a situation and wondered why?

While the emotion is still fresh, it can be used as an open doorway to identify the initiating event.  The Time-line technique, accredited to Tad James, enabled me to study the initiating event in this situation without emotion.  Without going into the touchy feely aspects of emotional response, I draw out some lessons in leadership styles and behaviours below which I found to be at root cause.

The project

As a background to the project, it was an assignment on performance management through behavioural change.  A group of very capable consultants was brought together with extensive experience of change management, behavioural change, performance management, facilitation, and blended learning.  The client was intelligent, very clear in their desired outcome, had beautiful behaviours and was a dream to work with.  As the contract was bid and awarded as a fixed price, the lead consultant assumed a role as project manager.

Leadership styles

General management theory says that leadership styles can be considered in six types: Directive, Pacesetting, Affiliative, Participative, Coaching, or Visionary.  As I described in my talk to the Women in PM conference in June on ‘Re-thinking Project Leadership’, the latter four styles are described by Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership, as ‘resonant’, in that they build energy and capability in the team.

The Directive style, which is also known as ‘authoritative’ or ‘command’, is appropriate for chaotic or turn-around situations.  It is, however, described as one of the two discordant styles. Over time it reduces energy and capability in the group.  Why do you think that would happen?

The project team I left was indeed discordant rather than resonant, and the products of the team were not ‘greater than the sum of the parts’.  What style do you think would have been the most appropriate for this assignment given the resources at hand?

Are they following you?

Peter's book

Understanding the events and the situation help you apply the right leadership style.  However, you can’t have leaders without followers. Keith Grint, in the Oxford series on Leadership, focuses on ‘Followership’, which is especially relevant in situations without formal hierarchy.  He asks the question, why would someone want to follow you?

A survey by the Chartered Management Institute reported that most managers rated themselves as having a Coaching style, whereas most employees rated their managers as being Directive.  How do you think your team would describe you?  More to the point, do you know how to flex your style? Let us know in the comments.

About the author
Peter Parkes, FAPM, is the author of NLP for Project Managers and Director of consultancy firm Peak Performance. He is a Master NLP Practitioner, a trained coach and mentor. He runs NLP training courses to address the shortage in competence-based training for project managers, which aim to balance the popularity of training in method and process.

Buy NLP for Project Managers on Amazon.co.uk

Buy NLP for Project Managers on Amazon.com

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Don’t you love infographics? Here’s one I found about women in business. It says that “we’ve come a long way” in the salary stakes: not far enough, it seems to me, seeing that this says we still only earn 80% of what men do. Click it to see it in larger format on the original website.

From: MBA Online Program

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Two people have got in touch to say that they have received virus/bug warnings when they have been surfing around A Girl’s Guide to Project Management. I was concerned and contacted the company who hosts my site. They have scanned their servers, found a rogue file and cleaned it up.

If you’ve received virus warnings I’m very sorry. The problem is now resolved.

Thanks to Julien and the other reader for getting in touch.

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Last month’s newsletter giveaway winner was Fiona from Edinburgh. She wins a signed copy of NLP for Project Managers: Make Things Happen with Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Peter Parkes.

Congratulations, Fiona!

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It’s practically Christmas, and A Girl’s Guide to Project Management is winding down for the year with a nice glass of mulled wine and a slice of stollen cake.

Thank you to everyone who has helped make blogging in 2010 so much fun.

Thanks especially to the authors and publishers who have allowed me to review and giveaway their books including Ann Marie Sabath, Lucy Rosen, Scott Berkun, Kathryn Ullrich, Andrea Redmond and Patricia Crisafulli, Kim Heldman and Vanina Mangano, Nancy Flynn, Stever Robbins, Nick McCormick, Larry and Meagan Johnson, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland, Rich Maltzman and Dave Shirley, Louis Testa, Curt Finch, Simon Moore, Christine Louise Hohlbaum, Mark Magnacca, Pat Durbin and Terry Doerscher.  You can read all about their books in the project management book review index.

Thanks also to those software providers who have taken the time to talk to me about their products and let me have test versions to try out. The project management software review index has all the latest reviews.

Thanks to the wonderful sponsors I have had this year to help me keep this blog afloat: AceProject: Project Management Software, CrossPoint PPM, Genius, Jovaco, Projectplace , Wrike, 5pm and LiquidPlanner.

And finally, thanks to you all, for reading!  Merry Christmas, everyone, and have a great New Year.

See you in 2011.

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