Leadership

What defines leadership? Is it lofty degrees from prestigious Business schools?

In my current role as a Project manager (a recent development), I am having to manage 10 people and assign them tasks and subtasks. The PM is the main catalyst for the success of any project, any body will tell you that. The bigger challenge is getting the work done in an optimal manner. The budgets assigned for each task can very quickly run dry in a consulting setting, given the high billing rates. The PM therefore, has to show Management skills- by assigning, setting expectations for final work product and trouble shooting problem areas.

However, I do not like the idea of micro-managing people. Although in some cases, this depends on the person being managed. In some cases (and this is where you differentiate stars from the crowd), some people have the knack of completing all the tasks on time and exceeding your expectations on the work product. And there are some, who produce a lousy work product or do work which was not of value to the Project. Its these people, who need to be micro-managed, but in a way that you do not make them hate their jobs. Getting people to do work is called managing, getting people to do work while making sure that they are loving what they are doing is called Leadership. And that is one heck of a difficult task!!