In the finale of this mini series of articles, I wish to share from an experience of leading a project team.

Being a professional in both legal and corporate governance practice was just a component of the team composition. The larger part of the team was ICT professionals. I had the seemingly daunting responsibility to lead the project team.

One thing that was glaringly clear was the difference in our comfort zones for discharging our respective roles in the project. Our definitions of key project activities and delivery structure were distinctly different in certain aspects and we sometimes struggled to reach a point of consensus as to where we were or where we were supposed to be.

After creating the content for the project, I became anxious to see it come together as the product that we had set out to deliver. I quickly realized that my input was no longer mine to hold on to but needed to be integrated within an ICT infrastructure. Leadership in the project was going to be interesting, to say the least.

My first point of call was to muster all I knew about the agile approach to work and matters of emotional and ethical intelligence. I remember, several times being confronted with, “We get the sense that you may not be understanding the workflow we are following”. I recall responding, “Please make me understand because it is critical for us to move forward”. Wearing the two hats of leading the project and investing in it had its own set of challenges!

What did I learn from this experience and how does it relate to thought leadership? I took the last few days pondering whether I was leading thought in this project and I came up with a certain perspective.

Thought leadership can also be about leading a certain attitude amongst your team or audience as the case may be. I found myself learning how my colleagues work, internal and external factors in facing challenges as well as exploiting opportunities. Leading the team to meet each other halfway at times, putting in the extra effort to ensure that team members were on the same page and equipped with what they needed to progress the work was central to the success of the project. Leading thought on the importance of effective communication while bearing in mind different specializations and situations and inculcation of the spirit of collective ownership of the success of the project entailed conscious efforts and interventions in deeds and speech in that regard.

Whereas the team you may be leading in thought may be relatively small and the leverage from your expertise in your industry might not be the only deliverable, you can still lead thought on those areas that are common to the cause.

Thank you very much for your kind attention and let’s continue to share!