In Part 1 of The 4 Building Blocks of Emotional Intelligence (EI), I focus on knowing thyself. A key aspect of knowing thyself is developing an action plan based on improvement opportunities identified from a 360-feedback evaluation. The nuggets you get from a 360 are crucial in helping you become a better-rounded PM.

There is another great source to help you in your learning journey: your stakeholder’s values. Before we get in too deep, here is a level-set of who I include in the stakeholder universe:

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

I worked for three companies in my professional career: Accenture, Microsoft, and my own company, Consetta Group.

In my 11 years at Accenture, I worked on gigs in the oil & gas, food distribution, technology, retail distribution, aerospace & defense, software product management, and outsourcing industries. At Microsoft I worked in IT, corporate procurement, corporate planning, and HR over a nine-year span. I not only got a rich education in different industries and functions, but was able to go deeper in areas I liked.

And it all largely happened despite my lack of planning.

Particularly in my career at Accenture, I mostly took the gigs that were given to me. I really had no idea what skills I wanted to build or industries I wanted to work in. What my experience at Accenture imprinted on me was to stay in a job for about 18 months then look for my next opportunity.

This continued at Microsoft as well as my own consultancy. After about 18 months I would get bored and need a change. Even to this day, I occasionally get an itch to do something different and new.

I’ve looked at a lot of LinkedIn profiles over the past several years. My first inclination is to go to the experience section and see not just where people have worked, but how many companies and how long they worked at each company. This review provides first impressions for me:

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

LinkedIn is the standard for introducing you to the world and enabling you to put your best foot forward in your chosen profession. According to LinkedIn’s pressroom:

• There are more than one billion members in 200 countries and regions worldwide.
• Seven people are hired every minute on LinkedIn.
• 9,000 members apply for a job every minute.
• 1.5 million feed updates are viewed per minute.
• 138 hours of learning content is consumed every minute.
• 67 million companies are on LinkedIn.

When used well, it can lead to fruitful long-term relationships. When used poorly, it can lock a door to an opportunity you may never even know about. Given that it can be used for free, it’s a no-brainer to use LinkedIn.

But merely putting up a profile may not be enough. I’ve seen many LinkedIn profiles that not only don’t make me more interested in a person, but they actually leave me with a negative perception of them. To that end, here are 11 lessons that might be helpful for you to avoid when creating a profile and using LinkedIn (or any other platform):

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

In Part 1: Ten Differences Between a Secure and an Insecure Leader,  I contrasted ten key attributes that distinguish a secure leader from one who is insecure in his or her abilities.  Part 2 is dedicated to giving you eight nuggets to help you succeed under an insecure leader. 

For years I was an insecure leader.  My greatest fear in leading others was that I would be "found out" and that everyone would see me not as a strong, competent leader but as a bumbling fool.  Through the years I've learned that the quest for infallibility is impossible to reach and that making mistakes is part of the growth process.  I'm less insecure today because I am more comfortable saying "I don't know" without everyone in the room thinking I'm an incompetent twit.  Having said that, I am secure in knowing I will continue to screw up until my Maker calls me home.

Way back when I was with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), our senior management became very interested in Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Every partner and manager attended an intensive five-day seminar on the seven habits and how to practically implement them into our daily lives.

Now, I have attended many seminars that I honestly got nothing out of. Not this one. This was when I experienced my first 360 evaluation. It was also during this seminar that one of the key concepts left a lasting impression: Habit 3, “Put first things first.” In this habit, Covey introduces the four quadrants of time management, as follows:

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

Patty and I have two adult children. Briana, our eldest, is married and has a beautiful son & daughter. Trevor, our youngest, is single, and has a lovable dog.

At age 6, Trevor was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), a high-functioning form of autism. At the time, the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-4) divided autism into five categories (Source: Healthline.com):
* Autistic Disorder
* Rett Syndrome
* Asperger’s Syndrome
* Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
* PDD-NOS

The DSM has since done away with the categories and now just calls it Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), about 1 in 36 children have been identified with ASD and ASD is four times more common in boys than girls. More broadly speaking, the CDC also reports that one in four adults have some type of disability.

Before we had kids, we never envisioned having a child with a disability, and at the time very little was publicly known about autism. As a professional, I had grand plans for a career as a successful corporate executive.

Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

Delivering effectively through others requires project managers to build trusted relationships, particularly when there are bumps in the road and the PM has to ask team members to do unplanned activities to keep things on schedule and budget, and within scope. I’m being intentional in naming this block Relate for Results. Building relationships with your team doesn’t mean you have to socialize with them or that some team members become personal friends. It means the relationship pillars are there to help you deliver what, when and how much you’ve agreed to.

There are common relationship pillars such as honesty, integrity, mindfulness and effective communication you can find in simple internet searches. I’d like to pose a slightly different lens on some pillars that I think are every bit as important, as follows:

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

Some time back I was reminded about a crucial attribute that all seasoned leaders possess.  What surprised me was that it didn't come from what I do in my work life, it came from an interaction I had with my then 15-year-old son. 

Sparing you some of the gory details, we had a situation where my son and I had to have some "man talk" where I expressed some displeasure with his behavior.  It wasn't pretty and was very uncomfortable for him and not at all pleasant for me.  Given that I took some huge withdrawals from the emotional bank account with him I recognized that I needed to have a more grounded follow-up discussion with him the next day.