One of the most important things a leader can do (if not the most important) is to ensure that their organization executes the appropriate plans/actions to reach the organizations’ goals.

Val Willis had an interesting post on Tom Peters’ blog about the recent Ford Motor Company announcement of record losses. In the post, Val discusses the need for leaders to focus on execution:

Getting a strategy executed requires more than a detailed plan, it requires getting everyone in the organization from the front lines to the C-Level engaged, passionate, and excited about the plan. Great execution happens in small manageable chunks by taking large plans and breaking them into manageable parts.

Sounds a lot like project management to me. I think most people would agree with me that the corporate world has ‘project-ized’ itself and is trying to deliver value via projects, which is what Ford is trying to do with their grand ‘re-organization and re-building’ plan.

The problem with making everything a project is that there still needs to be leadership within the project team. A good project manager doesn’t necessarily equate to a good project leader.

A good project manager may be able to create an nice Gantt chart and manage projects to deliver ‘on time, on scope and on budget‘ but to be a great project manager a person must lead the project…not just manage it.

I hope Ford has some excellent leaders within their teams…they will need them to execute their plans.

[tags] Project Management, Leadership, Execution [/tags]