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In honor of summer, I’m going to keep this week’s series of blogs bite-sized so you can get back to your beach and margaritas lickity split.\u00a0 This week I’ll review a few behaviors that are key to success as a project leader.<\/p>\nIn honor of summer, I’m going to keep this week’s series of blogs bite-sized so you can get back to your beach and margaritas lickity split.\u00a0 This week I’ll review a few behaviors that are key to success as a project leader.<\/p>\n
Key success behavior #1:\u00a0 Keep your promises.\u00a0 Sorry if this seems trivial.\u00a0 I bring it up because I frequently encounter people who can’t manage to follow this simple advice.\u00a0 One of your sources of power as a project leader is your word.\u00a0 People are keenly aware of when we do not keep our word.\u00a0 If you promise to do something, do it.\u00a0 Become known as the kind of person who’s word is their bond.\u00a0 Be known as a reliable person.\u00a0 Breaking a promise, even a small one, undermines your credibility.\u00a0 In my opinion this kind of erosion of your cred is never repaired.\u00a0 People remember broken promises forever.\u00a0 You might build up a huge string of promises that you keep afterward, but your broken promise will remain forever burned into memory.<\/p>\n
Oh, and don’t think I’m talking about delivering to unrealistic schedules or completing some ridiculous deliverable that everyone knew was never going to happen.\u00a0 I’m talking about promises you make as an individual, like promising to call someone back within 24 hours, or promising to review a document you received on email and give your feedback by the end of the week.\u00a0 And this also applies to small things, like keeping a lunch date, ending a meeting on time so your colleagues can get to their next meeting, or showing up at a party one of your people is holding when you’ve RSVP’d.<\/p>\n
Every promise you break, however minuscule, sends a message about the kind of person you are to the people around you.\u00a0 What’s worse, breaking your promises sets up a destructive cycle within your own mind, where you somehow convince yourself that it was a small promise, or not a promise at all, and that it really doesn’t matter.\u00a0 That’s the beginning of an insidious journey to complete loss of your integrity, a leader’s most precious asset.<\/p>\n
Make promises with care, and keep them as if your reputation depends on it, which it most certainly does.<\/p>\n
Now I’ll admit it – I have broken many promises.\u00a0 (How do you think I learn this stuff??!!\u00a0 By doing everything wrong at first, of course!)\u00a0 Write me your experiences with broken promises, yours and others, and the impact, and maybe I’ll confess some of my past blunders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In honor of summer, I’m going to keep this week’s series of blogs bite-sized so you can get back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-communications","category-miscellaneous"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14273,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions\/14273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}