2. Index
Page
1. Introduction 2
2. Management Principles which influenced my leadership 2
3. My star trait – Trust 4
4. My Limiting factors 5
5. Conclusion 6
6. References 7
3. I. Introduction:
I researched and discussed with leaders in my organization about a position of leadership in a project and
one of the main things I observed is that, successful leaders enjoy the drive and have an ecstatic feeling
for having influencing power over others. For me, leaders have to act as excellent practitioners of high
ethical and moral values. Around 5000 years ago, in ancient Indian literature “Yajur Veda” have outlined
quintessential traits of leadership under 5 broad categories [1] for kings to rule fairly:
1. Physical qualities of leader
2. Mental qualities
3. Knowledge
4. Behavioral qualities
5. Gender
I believe leaders play an irreplaceable role for any endevours whether it’s a project, football team,
organization or country itself. As the end result of any project, its degree of success is effectively explained
in the Panchtantra, Indian literature written approximately in 200 BC to educate the songs of the royal
family. [1]
“In case of horse or book or sword
Of women, men, or lute or word,
The use and uselessness depends
On the qualities the user lends.”
II. Management Principles which influenced my leadership:
Various research work and literature have been published on leadership and with the changing world
leadership traits are getting fine-tuned constantly. I have used mainly 3 different principles to be a
successful project leader.
1. Scientific management
2. Participative management
3. Chankya’s Niti sutra
1. Scientific Management:
Scientific management whose main theme is Wastage is wrong, reduce it and efficiency is good, increase
it. This is a main idea that has changed the whole industrial world since 1827. Taylor [4] started the
concept of time study, breaking up activities in to measurable tasks to monitor it. In all my projects I have
tried to avoid using traditional method of rule of thumb. Instead, I ensure that allactivities are measurable
and have a person accountable i.e. FPR. (First Person responsible). For example, in 2009 when I took over
setting up the Iraq country project, there was no direct or single person accountable for activities and we
were just measuring overall output for reporting to the management. I divided the whole operation into
a set of activities and measurable tasks, assigned each team member to one or more tasks. Such a small
work of dividing and making operations into measurable units doubled the output in the first 30 days of
implementation. This was the most tangible result I have seen of applying scientific management concept.
4. 2. Participative Management:
The Old management proverb, if you can’t measure it you can’t manage is most accurate in today’s era of
cut throat global competition. To manage a project effectively, it’s very important to develop the criteria
on which it will be defined as successful. The definition of success criteria needs to be done jointly by the
project leader, higher management and the customer.
This success criteria needs to be broken down and added into each team member’s measurement index,
normally known as Key performance index (KPI). I have observed that if KPI’s are set, keeping in mind the
project goal and communicating properly with team members are the biggest motivators. When a person
can visualize that his contribution is important for success of the project, it increases the commitment and
quality of work. I use following methods to manage the project
1. Whenever I observe that output of the team have not met the target in spite of honest effort from
team members, I call for a meeting to discuss troubling points, distractions, encouraging to think
and come up with solutions to come around.
2. Before starting a critical task, I ask my team to go in the brain storming room to discuss all possible
ideas, risk which may face and come out to discuss with me most practical solution. This
encourage in owning up the project by each team members and I’m of a believer that team with
multiple minds rather than single mind of leader can generate better solution.
3. I ensure to job rotation on regular basis for 3 reasons, in case any member of team decides to
leave I have back up resource to handle the profile, second, it fosters attitude of learning and
supporting a new team member by previous team member and lastly this reduces the chances of
malpractices.
3. Chankya niti:
Chankya was a first economist, advisor and prime minister of Maurya Emperor in India ( c. 350 – 283
BC).[9] He has written two books “Arthsastra”, the sanskrit name for classical economics and “ Niti
Sastra”, which explains various ethical, moral traits of leaders, how a leader should act in different
situations for overall good for society. Whenever I find myself in the midst of chaos, I go back to Chankya’s
literature to find a solution.
He suggested that before starting up a new project ask 3 questions:
1. Why I’m doing this work
2. What the result might be
3. Will I be successful?
These 3 questions are simple yet difficult to answer and have the power to make project planning and
process easy if answered in detail.
Another important management sutra (principle) he gave is “Saam- Daam-Dand – Bhed”. The meaning of
these 4 key words is
Saam: To advise or to ask
Daam: To offer or buy
Dand – To punish
Bhed – Exploiting the secrets.
5. As per this sutra(principle), he suggests four approaches a leader should use for getting the work done,
first is Saam which means to advise or ask, leader should explain the importance of given work and its
implication on total project scope. Next is Daam, to offer a money or rewards for accomplishing a task as
reward is one of the biggest motivators in any one’s cycle of need. Third component is ‘Dand’ which
means to punish, this is to be used when Saam and Daam do not work to motivate the person. And last,
the mighty component of sutra – Bhed i.e. to exploit the secrets. He has cautioned that this should be last
resort a leader should use to save the project. In the real world where so many people are working on a
project and most of the time team members are on different stages of life with different goals and
attitudes towards life, the universal motivation approach does not work. Hence it’s very important that
a leader apply this principle wisely. I have handled various situations with the first 3 components of sutra
and luckily never faced a situation to apply the last component. It takes time to master this principle but
once learned, a leader can manage the project while avoiding the normal frictions within team.
III. My Star trait: Trust
To give trust and to get trust from a team is the most important factor in the project management. Trust
in leadership from team members, customer’s trust in a leader to deliver the value, and the senior
manager’s trust in the project manager to handle internal and external constraints are different forms of
trust which I have built during my 13 years of professional experience. [7]
The first part is generating a two way trust in the team (i.e. leader’s trust in the team’s capability and
acknowledgement of team members in leadership). In 2009 when I took over the stagnant benchmarking
project in Dubai, my first task was to clear out various ambiguity circling around the project. We were
trying to identify best practices across 40 Distribution Centres and set a benchmark. In completing this
essential task, I first had to get clearance from senior management about expectations and overall scope
of the project. Secondly, I called for kick off meetings to discuss various objectives, and who would be
responsible and accountable for each task. Thirdly, I asked every member of the team to prepare and
discuss with me their approach to complete the assigned task. During meetings, I avoided negative
comments, past failure reasons & encourages positive constructive discussion for our future course of
action. As we started reaching milestones, my team & senior management’s confidence level started
increasing. By merely clearing out the confusion about the goals and defining the expectation [8], we
were able to finish the project which was stuck from the past 6 months on a revised timeline.
The second part is gaining trust from the senior management and the customers. I think, this is a fragile
part for the role of the project leader as minor issues may erode long developed environment of trust. To
manage this, I use 2 major principles.
1. Avoid surprises (good or bad):
Project manager should avoid both types of surprises as in any case, there is no real benefit for project
progress and future goals. Whether good news or bad news, by keeping the senior managers in the
loop, probability of getting help is more, to control the situation rather than hiding it till last moment.
I have avoided project failures on numerous occasions by practicing this. For example when our first
shipment of frozen food sailed from Felixstowe Port, U.K for Dubai, supplier didn’t added County of
Origin information on packages which is a mandatory import requirement in UAE. When I realized this
minor printing error, I immediately escalated possibility of the problem which may arise once
shipment reached to Dubai Port. And after series of dialogue with supplier we able to reject the
6. shipment which means I convinced management to expect loss to the business due to delayed start-
up of project. But there were benefits of avoiding a receipt of non-compliance notice from customs
office and possibility of receiving deteriorating product quality due to delayed clearance.
2. Rehearsal for a meeting:
Project manager should prepare a report at least 48 hours before a meeting evaluating all the points.
Report needs to have action plan if project is on track, how speed will be maintained and if project is
delayed, report must have recommendations or help required. As if I do not know how meeting is
going to end, I’m giving away my control and becoming fragile. When I got promoted to corporate
office from regional office in 2011, I observed my Head of the Department (HOD), Mr. Swapan doing
role playing act one week before meeting to board of directors. In this, he used to act as chairman of
the board playing devil’s advocate role by asking question about long term strategy and financial
implications to General Manager who used to act as HOD. I observed that in this role playing act, my
HOD used to prepare himself to face various different questions which directors might ask. Mr.
Swapan, used to tell us that directors have amazing skills of judging confidence level by asking simple
but important questions, which I might ignore while preparing a presentation and if I fumble
answering them in the board room I lose credibility. I, too, started doing same role playing act with
my team before important review meeting with the customers or senior managers which helped me
to build trust.
IV. My Limiting factors
I think 2 major factors are limiting my growth, first, my slow adaptability to ever changing technology.
One of the skill requirement for good project manager is having a technical knowledge. I think, as a leader
my First limfac (limiting factor) [5] is slowing down my growth from past 15 years. During my school days
I learned and exceled computer programming language like C+, Basics, Cobol but these languages are now
past and taken over my dozens of new programming languages. I need to constantly keep myself updated
to be in the game.
My second limfac is my projectitis behavior (I realized this while retrospection for this essay.) which I’m
determined to avoid in future. In year 2013, I delivered phase 1 of the project - frozen food business in
which my role was to prepare Logistics Strategy, prepare regulatory requirements document and start-up
of the business. At the end of the phase 1 project review meeting, management has offered me 2 projects
to select a one. First option was to work on phase 2 of frozen food business and another option to work
on the Mega Distribution Centre (Mega DC). I selected first option honoring to my comfort factor that I
know team members of frozen food business with whom I had a strong sense of bonding while working
on phase 1. But soon I realized I missed the train. Because second project i.e. working on the MEGA DC
would have given me more visibility in the organization, to the senior management, my interaction with
key people of different departments would have increased. Whereas by selecting the first option, I
became specialized for Frozen food business but lost my ability to influence company’s core business
units. I realized that to sustain your importance in the eye of senior management it’s important to work
on project which is important and visible to them. This increases our influencing capability.
7. V. Conclusion:
My leadership skill is evolving with the time as I’m getting exposed to the new set of challenges, and new
projects. When I look back, I feel there are numerous occasions I would have handle differently today.
As my understanding deepened on various technical, political, emotional, legal subjects I have become
more sensitive and appreciative as a leader. With the changing time my belief in 3 main management
principle discussed in section II have strengthen. And, as explained in the Theory of Constraints Handbook
“Trust is earned slowly and lost quickly” [11], I value Trust as utmost important trait for leaders. Last, I
also recognize my limiting factors which is holding me back but I’m a work in progress…
References:
1. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228221464_Leadership_Qualities_from_the_Indian_Management_
Thought_The_Yajur_Veda
2. http://www.ishafoundation.org/blog//lifestyle/dna-of-success/qualities-of-a-good-leader/
3. http://www.allaboutbharat.org/post/Chanakya-Niti-PDF-Download
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor
5. Limfac – Word used in U.S army, taken from book – Team of Teams, author General Stanley McChrystal, US
Army Retired.
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/business/02speed.html?_r=0
7. 8th
edition, Project Management, A Managerial Approach, Page 118,
8. Developing management skills by David A Whetten and Kim S Camreron, Chapter 6 - Motivating others,
page 340
9. http://ranjitsharmablog.blogspot.com/2012/09/chanakya-niti-shastra-download-ebook.html
10. Developing management skills by David A Whetten and Kim S Camreron, Chapter 6 - Motivating others,
page 343
11. James F. Cox III, Ph.D, CFPIM, CIRM; John G. Schleier, Jr.: Theory of Constraints Handbook. A Critical Chain Project
Management Primer, Chapter (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2010), AccessEngineering
