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
