7 good habits

Your leadership tool is you and if you want to become a better leader you’ll have to work with yourself. There is no way around it. An old saying states: ”Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny”. Aristotle said: ”We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. This is true as well when it comes to your project leadership. You may have good or undesirable habits. The following is inspired by Stephen R. Coveys 7 habits for highly effective people.

Be proactive – you are the principal organizer!

The first habit is about being proactive. It is about no matter what you are presented with you decide your own reaction. You accept that you are free to choose according to your self-awareness, imagination, conscience and will. Note that none of these words have anything to do with other people. It is not about what others might think you should do. Being proactive frees the power that lies in being at liberty to choose your own reaction. This is probably the most important habit for a leader. It is unthinkable that you can lead if you aren’t proactive. Rosabeth Moss Kanter says: ”Show Up”. You are the one who initiates. Be where the action is and create the future.

Set goals for your project leadership

The second habit is well known to all project leaders: Begin with the end in mind. Ergo the goal. It is good practice to begin defining the goal before designing the project.  We also make the milestones before planning the activities in detail. But now we’re talking about your development as a leader. What is the goal? What do you wish to achieve? The first habit implies that you create the future project leader. The second habit defines the goal for the leader you wish to be.

Based on your experience from project work, feedback from stakeholders and project participants, and your dreams of the project leader you wish to become, what is the goal in this current project and in the longer run? Rosabeth Moss Kanter says: ”Look Up”. Gaze at a higher level, higher principles and values. What is the dream project leader like? Here you can think specific areas. How does the ideal project leader handle the project owner you’re dealing with right now? How do you want to handle the conflicts between your most important stakeholders? How do you wish to motivate your project participants? Which areas in this project do you want to improve and how will you act as project leader in three years’ time?

Put first things first

This is difficult and as project leaders we know this all too well. The day-to-day running has a tendency to win over the long term project which is essential in creating the future. This is also the fact in our personal lives as humans. We do the urgent things where others are waiting for us while the things we wish to achieve in the longer term are constantly put off. It can be further training, relation building, time with friends or professional back-and-forth with employees who can be helpful in the long run.

Covey says, that habit one and two are about leadership. The realization that I am the initiator and I have the mental strength to set my goal. But this third habit is about management, about methodology that helps you get things done. This third habit demands a focus on what you have decided to achieve. It is not so much about detailed planning and time management but more about organization and prioritization.

”Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least” Goethe

Involve others and think win/win

If you want people to follow you and help you it is essential that they are able to see the advantages they get from your cooperation. There has to be something in it for them. Win/win builds on the assumption that there is enough for everybody. Personal success isn’t achieved at the expense of others or by blocking others’ success. The habit is a state of mind constantly seeking mutual advantages in all human relations. It isn’t your way or my way but the best way.

If you choose to impose your solutions you have chosen a win/lose strategy. This implies that you actually have a power position and resources at your disposal. It works if you’re dealing with manual routine work where the amount of hours used is crucial for the result, but you cannot order people to be creative and find the best solutions.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood

In order to think win/win it is a prerequisite that you know what the other stakeholders desire. So you have to be good at listening to others’ interests, positions and emotions. Until you understand others it will be very difficult to convince them about a mutual solution. ”Seek first to understand”, is a monumental change in most people’s way of thinking. Typically we try to be understood. Usually we just listen not in order to understand but in order to figure out what our answer should be.

Here it is important to understand the human motivation. We aren’t motivated by fulfilled needs but by unfulfilled needs. When we listen to other people with empathy we show them respect and good will. When this vital need is fulfilled we can bring on our own points of view. Until we have fulfilled this basic need there will not be any motivation from the counterpart to listen to our ideas.

Create synergy  and create greater value

Synergy is often defined as the effect of the whole being more than the sum of individual parts. So synergy is not a potluck where each bring their own dish. No, we make the dinner together. This means that we develop new dishes by mixing the ingredients in a way that none of us have tried previously. So the dish is new and surprising to all of us. You might say that synergy is the highest form of co-creation, but it requires that we listen with empathy and have a win/win approach.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter says: ”Lift Up”. Lift others up and share the success.

Often we are not sufficiently aware that our background greatly influences how we perceive the world and that we therefore have diverging approaches. As a project leader you’ll meet many different people with different backgrounds,  culture, education, expectations and levels of information. The possibility that some of your project participants don’t share your preferences and background is considerable. But that isn’t a problem – it is a huge opportunity.

Sharpen the saw is the seventh and last habit. It is all about maintaining your “production capacity”. You have to develop your competencies and relations constantly. This is not only true professionally but also when it comes to friends, acquaintances and family. It includes eating healthy and getting enough sleep and exercise.

Stephen Richards Covey (1932 – 2012) was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. Covey earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Utah, an MBA from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Religious Education (DRE) from Brigham Young University.

She was awarded honorary doctorates. In 1996, Times magazine named him one of the 25 most influential people.

A selection of Stephen Covey’s many books

Et udvalg af Stephen Coveys mange bøger

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989, 2004) ISBN: 0-671-70863-5.
• Spiritual Roots of Human Relations (1970) ISBN: 0-87579-705-9.
• The Divine Center (1982) ISBN: 1-59038-404-0.
• Principle Centered Leadership (1989) ISBN: 0-671-79280-6.
• First Things First (1994), co-authored with Roger and Rebecca Merrill ISBN: 0-684-80203-1.
• Living the 7 Habits (2000) ISBN: 0-684-85716-2.
• The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (2004) ISBN: 0-684-84665-9.
• The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything (2006), Stephen M. R. Covey, co-authored with Rebecca Merrill; foreword by Stephen R. Covey