A Story of a Great Leader

I met a client of mine for coffee recently.

Well, he isn’t so much of a client as a good friend now. The sort of person who brings on an immediate smile in me when I see him. If you’re lucky, then you know the sort of person I mean.

Easy to talk to, happy to see you and always, always, positive. They leave you feeling better than when you said the first "Hi".

After catching up with each other, we reminisced on what a brilliant project, we both had the luck to work on together a few years ago.

Since that project we’ve both moved on. Steven has moved on to bigger and better projects and he’s doing brilliantly. I’ve moved on too, but it was great to see him again.

In reminiscing, though, we both reflected on why it was that we had such a great project team that was so successful.

Just what forces had brought this team together to deliver so well and have such a good time too ?

The project was to silently shut down a major UK infrastructure asset and carry out 24/7 inspection over a two week period, in a 'silent service' way. It was executed perfectly and silently. All under Steven’s outstanding project leadership.

How exactly did that team come together and win ?

You see, the team seemingly just 'self assembled'. There was no high performing team design or intervention, there were even no interviews or recruitment strategy, we just got together and delivered the job. That was it. We just delivered. So had we been just lucky ? Or was it something else that combined to create success ?

Sometimes we are lucky in life, we join a team and things just click, people just get on. But thinking back we both thought that there were some unplanned factors that gave us the edge.

Here is our list.

1.An 'almost' unachievable challenge. We had an awesome challenge that many thought we couldn't deliver. We made it though. Just in time, you may say.

2. An unmovable deadline. We had an unmovable deadline. Failure was not an option, so we didn’t consider it. Every time we faced a challenged that threatened it, we worked even harder, whatever it took, to get the job back on plan. We just took obstacles away.

3. Each person knew their job and stuck to it. Politicians, Stakeholders, Artisan PMs, Construction Dynamos, Genius Engineers, The 'Glue and Oil' People, Operational Ninjas. We had them all. We knew what to do and stuck to our jobs.

4. Comms by any channel and round the clock commitment. By texting, by phone, by face to face, evening and weekends, we did what ever it took to deliver the job. The team generated unbelievable commitment. On some days we put in crazy shifts to deliver.

5. Self built Performance Measures. We built out own and owned them too. A simple weekly tracker to make sure we 'Red Amber and Green lighted' every key aspect. We mapped the project and placed the heat map on the wall, for all to see. Even our cleaners knew the project and its progress.

6. Motivation and Entertainment = Fun. Every opportunity to we made excuses to get out and share a coffee or an occasional beer. But in truth, not a great deal, we didn't really need to. Good work was the reward.

7. Respect and Support. Huge this one ! Like passing the football. Steven's opening statement to me when we first ever met, many years ago was “Gareth, I respect you. Now we all make mistakes, I want you to think of it this way. We are both on a football pitch and you are dribbling the ball. At some stage you will lose the ball, but I don’t want you to worry, because when that happens, I will pick it up and dribble for you”. And when I lost the ball on occasional. He did just that. He picked up and supported me. Especially in meetings. That was huge.

One thing struck me though as I walked away from our cafe table.

I glanced back at Steven as he walked away as cheerful as ever, grateful for the coffee time we had together. There was one other magical ingredient.

It was Steven.

He was and still is one of the best managers I've ever known. There were things he did do and things he would never do.

I’ve been thinking about what he did and didn’t do. Here's the list.

What Steven did

• He kept purpose goal and approach relevant to us.
• He gave me positive support. Always.
• He was always welcoming and grateful and truly valued me being in that team. I felt special.
• He made others feel valued. Every team member said this.
• He valued your experience and expertise, always strengthening mix and levels of skills.
• He understood, he took care to find out about me and supported me with my home life commitments.
• He delivered stuff himself and grafted with the team.
• He shielded us from the politics and managed relationships with outsiders.
• He removed blockages regardless of size.
• He took time to find our strengths and created opportunities for others too.
• He smiled.
• He joked.
• He knew his (technical) stuff.
• He gained respect with new people he met.
• Steven was as always ‘open’.
• He accepted and shared his humanness. His vulnerabilities. Yes, he made mistakes but also he admitted to them and fixed the outcomes if he made an error.
• He paid attention to deliverables not how they were delivered.
• He was consistent. You knew what to expect. This built trust.
• He looked for new ways to do old jobs.

And here’s the things Steven didn't do

• Speak badly of others.
• Micromanage.
• Was ever in a bad mood.
• Was ever was weird or silent.
• Ever gave you cause to worry.
• Ever failed to believe in you.
• Ever ignored or walked by you.
• Never ever blamed others.
• Allowed anyone to ever fail.
• Never make excuses for team performance nor his bosses nor the companies shortcomings.

Quite a leader. If he reads this he’d be embarrassed, I’m sure and wouldn’t say this was him. But it was and still is.

So in summary

Sometime we think that there is a master plan and someone has placed all the Chess Pieces in place, that a HPT guru has fixed our problems but sometimes we get lucky.

Instead of Chess Pieces there are Magnets. Magnets like Steven. And sometimes we get to work with a great team and a magnetic leader like Steven.

I’ll leave the final words in this posting to Steven final words - post latte…

“You know what Gareth, I think that work and projects are quite simple after all - “If you work hard and are a good person, amazing things will happen”.

For those who worked on Steven's project.

They did.

Steven was Quite A Leader.