Leaders Do Not Complain

Project Management is often a thankless task.  You often are the leader of a project, expected to get it done, but you may not have the authority to get it done yourself.  You may not even have any staff of your own.  You’re strapped for resources.  You often feel like you’re begging for everything.  You work long hours.  You get things done that usually end up credited to the business owner or your project sponsor, not to you.   We as PMs have plenty to complain about.  The thing is, if we complain, we are ruining our ability to lead. 

Complaining is one of the most dangerous things a leader can do.  When you complain, you do all of the following and more:

1. You deny your responsibility for the situation.  After all, if you were responsible, you would fix it.  You are the leader, right?
2. You reduce your own authority.  See item 1- if you are complaining about it, obviously you don’t have the authority to fix it.
3. A complaint is an excuse.  Again, see item 1.
4. You blame, even if you don’t name names.  If you aren’t responsible for a situation, someone else is.
5. You give others permission to emulate your behavior- when something makes them unhappy, they have the option to either solve the problem or just complain about it.

Leaders take action.  They also inspire action in others.  Complaining does neither of these things.  In fact, it does the opposite.  It fosters negative attitudes.  If fosters an image that you point out problems, not solve them.  It gives permission to others to not solve problems.

That said, project managers, and technical people in general, often are very critical thinkers.  Critical thinkers have a tendency to see fault in a lot of things, to get overwhelmed by all the faults, to complain and get trapped in negativity.

So what can you do?  Learn how to deal with what’s bothering you in a positive way.  Here is a great article by Steve Pavlina on how to stop complaining.  I also recommend this method below, which is my personal method:

1. Write down all of your complaints in a list.
2. Treat this list as a business problems list- do a root problem analysis of each.
3. From here, simply handle it as any other project plan- develop a list of requirements, then a task list, ordered task list, project plan, etc.
4. Execute your plan to solve your problems!

Why do I like this method?  Quite simply, it’s plays to my strengths.  I turn my problems into an actionable list, then I do something about them, and I do it in a way that plays to my analysis and project management capabilities.

You can use this same methodology to deal with complaints from your team.  Talk to them.  Get their complaints out in the open.  Write them down on a big whiteboard.  Lead your team through creating the list, getting buy-in that solving these problems matters, then use the process above.  Turn solving the team’s problems into a team project.  Not only do you gain their buy-in during the process, you exhibit leadership, you gain their buy-in into your leadership, you solve their problems, and, most importantly, you are teaching and leading by example:  by watching how you help them solve their problems, you help teach them how to stop complaining and get more done.

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