Authentic Leadership

The keynote speaker at last week's PMI North America Global Congress was Marcus Buckingham. If you don't know the name, he has authored/co-authored a number of books including First, Break all the Rules, Now Discover your Strengths, and most recently, Standout.

His keynote focused on research he did on leadership as part of his latest book. What he found was that for large organizations, the local leader made the difference. However, no to leaders took the same approach. Trying to apply a single leadership model to all of them wouldn't work because you couldn't transfer a leadership style from one person to another.

What he found was a set of nine strength roles. Here's a quick overview of them:

• Advisor - someone that gives people advice and helps solve their problems
• Connector - someone that looks as the world as a set of relationships
• Creator - someone that's a thinker
• Equalizer - someone that looks for the right thing to do and meets their commitments
• Influencer - someone that is thinking about how to move people into action
• Pioneer - someone looking for what's next or what's new
• Provider - someone that creates a safe environment for their team
• Stimulator - someone looking to raise the energy level and get people excited
• Teacher - someone that looks at opportunities to learn and help their team learn

What he said that there isn't a perfect leadership profile, just leaders that understand and follow the practices of the style that aligns with their top two strengths. I didn't have a chance to buy Standout while I was at the Congress, but it will be in my next order from Amazon.