Kurt Vonnegut's Leadership Analysis

Former president Ronald Reagan summed up leadership by stating that “the greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things” (Daskal, 2015). Effective leaders inspire people. Leaders provide motivation and the direction to achieve goals; large or small. The character, actions and thoughts of leader can permeate an organization. And often, based upon the organizational culture, one can usually tell if the character, action and thoughts were good or bad. Therefore, I agree that arrogance can lead to jumping to conclusions, which can have a negative impact on the success of projects. This is why Kurt Vonnegut’s leadership quote is so poignant-“we are what we pretend

Though the project manager may not have the authority as functional managers, his or her leadership skills should be sharp. Part of a project manager’s responsibility includes project governance which includes decision-making (PMBOK, 2014, p.34). In his article, “Everything goes through me-The Project Manager’s Words to Live By”, author Bill Dow shared how the “everything goes through me” confidence displayed by the pharmacist at a local pharmacy could be beneficial for project managers (2013). Dow believed if project managers “possessed that same kind of confidence and showed those same leadership skills, the project management industry as a whole could be much more efficient…” (2014). Moreover, Dow identified similar characteristics as shared in Beach’s article. Jumping to the wrong conclusion or making impulsive decisions can have a negative impact on the project team as well as project success. In jumping to conclusions, we interpret reality and facts, based upon our beliefs or existing assumptions without obtaining sufficient information to draw conclusions. We then take actions which seem right because they are based upon our beliefs. This is also referred to as delusional reasoning (Manktelow et al.,