Lead Dog Has the Best View: Leading Your Project Team to Success by Gordon L. Culp
Does your project team see you as a leader or a manager? Project teams must be led rather than just managed in order to unleash their full potential, energy and enthusiasm. The Lead Dog Has the Best View examines what it takes to make the crucial transition from project manager to project leader. All too often project managers rely on their technical skills and computer-generated information about project status in their attempts to achieve success, thus confusing management with leadership. Rarely does a project fail due to lack of technical skills. Instead, relationship and communication difficulties play a key role in poor project results. This book provides a person-centered, results-driven approach to project leadership not found elsewhere. It includes a Leadership Assessment Tool that you can use to provide feedback on your leadership skills, by others as well as yourself. You'll then learn how to combine this feedback with an understanding of behavioural preferences or improving your leadership effectiveness. This volume is intended to be a frequently used tool, not just read once and put on a shelf. Each chapter includes practical exercises and checklists that can be used individually or with a project team on an ongoing basis to periodically assess and improve leadership skills and to quickly recall and apply these key concepts on projects. A valuable addition to any project manager's toolkit, The Lead Dog Has the Best View will make project work more fulfilling on both the professional and personal levels.