Communications and Media

There was one instance where I performed a leadership role, and also learned from a good leader, that I still remember very clearly. It was almost 4 years ago, on August 2006 to be exact the setting was in Riyadh city in Saudi Arabia and the problem was that I had a very urgent project at work. It was for an office building, it was only one floor but it was sizeable and it was an open space to be used for storage. My role at the time was the project manager, and this means that I was to direct and support the specific project all the way through to its finishing stages. It was an important role and a decently sized project so of course like anybody would, I did not want anything to go wrong with anything related to the project, down to the smallest detail. In this instance, though there were many other in more superior positions than me, I had a leadership role as there were just as many, even more, who were directly under me such as the workers and labourers.

The problem, actually, appeared in the form of floor tiles. As I had said, the project area, though a single floor, was rather sizeable so in order to do the flooring of the building, we required 2000 square meters of floor tiles. The problem did not present itself right away, it was not exactly a direct logistics problem once the amount of tiles needed was calculated, we ordered that much quantity from Italy. So, at the time all that we thought we needed to do was finish everything else that needed to be done before the tiles arrived and move on to that rather large part of the project, the flooring, once they did. But when the shipment from Italy finally arrived, we found that the company had only sent us 700 square meters of floor tiles, definitely an extremely far cry from the 2000 square meters that we needed and ordered. Of course once this was discovered we immediately contacted the company to find the reason for what we were hoping was just a grievous mistake, or at the very least maybe a misunderstanding. I suppose that some of us, me at the very least, were hoping that this could just be an initial shipment and there were more on the way. Once contacted though, what slivers of hope we had were shattered, as they explained that it was because the production line at the factory in Italy could not cover the whole amount of tiles at that moment. In a way, it was both a misunderstanding and an initial shipment as they said that due to the explained fault they were just able to only send the amount that they sent us, and that the rest of the required number of tiles would in fact be sent, but only after two months. You can imagine the semi-panic that ensued at the prospect of having to postpone a large project for two whole months just because some off-shore company could not deliver what had been promised us.

As a project manager, I was of course required to finish the project on time, and so this problem was serious because we were not in a position to wait for two months. Like for any project, there was a dateline attached to this one, and the budget for the entire thing was tied very closely to that deadline. There were also the wages of the workers to consider, and whether we could keep them if we postponed for two months or let them go during the hiatus contracts had to be brought up and perused through. These people were directly under me, and I was liable for their work and welfare, at least while they worked on this project. On top of all of that, there was nothing else we could do to keep working for two months because we had already done all the other unrelated parts of the project, and all the other finishing works depended on the flooring phase such as plastering the walls, painting, putting up the wall paper, et cetera.

I thought long and hard about this problem, there were so many things on the line over a single detail gone amiss. The solution that I finally came up with was to replace the material. It seems like such a simple answer to a big problem, and not much to fuss over, but one has to remember that the original material was part of the plans that had already been drawn up and finalized, and part of the order had already been fulfilled and delivered. So changing the material at this point was by no means a simple task. Like I said, I thought long and hard for this, and it was the only solution I could come up with that allowed us to finish the project by the deadline, and actually save money in the long run when compared to all the monetary and logistic consequences of waiting for two months. I came up against a wall though, when I asked my senior project manager to approve the change and he did not. My senior project manager denied my proposal because it turns out that he did not have power enough to change the order.

At this point, I decided to bite the bullet and go to someone who did have that power, so I went to the project director to discuss the problem with him. He turned out to be a rather flexible and undoubtedly intelligent person. The direct manager listened to and understood the point of view I presented that if we did not finish the project on time, we would not only face a fine but our company would lose its good reputation and, with that, future business. He finally approved the replacement of material and we ordered the replacement from a local company. We told them to send us the required quantity and of course, required the same quality. We received the new tiles promptly and we were able to finish the project on time.

Essentially, I have learned that flexibility is a vital quality of a good leader, as in cases like this where it can save companies from big losses. I also learned that with that flexibility, one must also learn to take calculated chances for both the welfare of your followers and for the bigger picture, the project and the company.