Eg5551 Group Project
GROUP PROJECT IN
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
LEADERSHIP
K Hobbs, C Meadows, R Bosunia, T Irvine, G Lambert
16/05/2014
Group Project
EG5551
How does leadership style impact on project success, in particular
Transformational and Transactional styles and do different industries display varying traits ?
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Table of Contents
1. Acknowledgement
4
2. Abstract
5
3. List of Tables / Figures / Graphs
7
4. Introduction
8
5. Literature Review
5.1. Leadership and Management
5.2. Leadership Styles and Models
5.2.1. MBTI
5.2.2. Emotional Intelligence
5.2.3. Situational Leadership
5.2.4. Hay/McBer model which identified 6 distinct leadership styles
5.2.5. L4 model which contains …show more content…
four culture patterns
5.2.6. Transformational vs Transactional
5.2.7. Passive Avoidance
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5.3. Project Success
5.4. Project Managers Leadership Style
5.5. Organisational Leadership & Development Programs
6. Leadership Survey Strategy
6.1. Survey Development
6.2. Survey Demographics
6.2.1. Aerospace
6.2.2. Construction
6.2.3. IT
6.2.4. Oil & Gas EPC
6.2.5. Oil & Gas Upstream
6.3. Survey Analysis
6.3.1. Transformational Leadership
6.3.2. Transactional Leadership
6.3.3. Passive Avoidant Leadership
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6.3.4. Outcome of Leadership – Extra Effort
6.3.5. Outcomes of Leadership – Effectiveness
6.3.6. Outcomes of Leadership – Satisfaction
6.3.7. Project Success
6.4. Summary of results
7. Conclusions & Recommendations
72-73
8. Bibliography
74-77
Appendix 1 – survey
Appendix 2 – Working together in a group
78-80
81-86
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1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our group would like to express our thanks to the following persons for their help and support throughout the generation of this project
Dr Robin Henderson for his help support and guidance
The group for their continued support to one another throughout this assignment
Our families whilst we have been focused on these deliverables.
The many participants in answering our survey.
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2. ABSTRACT
This research paper looks to explore the various types of leadership styles that have been studied and implemented over the years and how these relate to Project Management, particularly looking for any consistencies between the leadership style being demonstrated and the relative success of the project. Does a leader fit into one style or do they adapt to the situation or project at hand
(different situations and dealing with different people require changes in leadership approach, especially where culture/national differences are present)?
The main questions we will look to explore and build on are 1. What do we mean by leadership, is a leader different from simply being a manager?
2. Identify key leadership styles, their attributes and the benefits of each style.
3. Specify what defines project success and how different leadership styles can improve the chances of success.
The literature review firstly focused on the difference between managers and leaders, Yukl (2002) states that a person can be a good leader without being a manager and a person can be a manager without leading. Rost (1991) also describes management as an authority relationship that exists between a manager and subordinates to produce and sell goods and services. Rost also describes leadership as a multidirectional influence relationship between a leader and followers with the mutual purpose of accomplishing real change. These initial findings suggested you could be one without being the other. However the findings of the literature review suggested that to be a
Successful Project Manager you should have leadership skills (Yukl, 2002) but they do not assume that leaders and managers are different types of people. It can be considered that to be a successful project manager that the individual is also a good leader.
The review then moved on to leadership where we various definitions of Leadership and various types of styles.
PMBOK guide describes leadership as “The ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve project success. It enables the project to proceed in an environment of change and uncertainty”
Mayer and Salovey identified 4 key skills that a leader should master to gain success which were: selfawareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management Goleman expanded these skills to capture the following: emotional self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills. Blanchard and Hersey identified 4 key behaviour types of a Situational Leader: directing or ‘telling’ leadership, coaching or ‘selling’ leadership, supporting leadership and delegating leadership we found that Situational Leadership style can be related back to the Daniel Goleman
Emotional Intelligence style theory, consultants Hay McBer, surveyed executives worldwide and found six distinct leadership styles, The Coercive Leader, The Authoritative Leader, The Affiliative
Leader, The Democratic Leader, The Pace-Setting Leader and The Coaching Leader each which can be related to the elements of Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence. By looking at these 3 theories we can
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quickly see how these can be intertwined.
This paper then moves on to look in detail at Transformational and Transactional styles. James
MacGregor Burns proposed that transformational leadership “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”.
Transactional leadership is a “‘give and take’ working relationship – rapport between leader and follower is established through exchange, such as a rewards system for meeting particular objectives”
(Lai 2011).
The literature review then looks at Project Success and if Leadership contributes to success. The findings demonstrate that there is a strong belief that leadership styles (Hay/Mcber 6 Leadership
Styles and Burns Transformational and Transactional Styles) do impact project success and the best leaders also adapt their style to situation types.
With this linkage we wanted to further explore the Transactional and Transformational leadership styles and how people within our organisations view a relationship, if at all, between the leadership styles and project success.
A questionnaire was developed which was based on the Multifunctional Leadership Questionnaire
(MLQ). The collated questionnaires showed a strong dominance between the Transformational and
Transactional Styles in both the Organisations Leaders and the Organisations in themselves, the results of the Survey support the literature review carried out (Muller and Turner), both the
Transformational and Transactional Styles appear to be as dominant.
The findings of the Literature review and the questionnaire demonstrate there is a strong belief that leadership styles (Hay/Mcber 6 Leadership Styles and Burns Transformational and Transactional
Styles) do impact project success, the best leaders also adapt their style to situation types.
In conclusion there are many leadership styles that are demonstrated by leaders, that the style does depend on the leader and the situation they are working within, and that although there are a number of authors and styles that there are common themes across them.
This has been generated as a team effort comprising of the following members:
Bonunia, Raquib - IT Industry
Hobbs, Karen – Oil and Gas Upstream Industry
Irvine, Thomas – Construction Industry
Lambert, Gary – Oil and Gas EPC Industry
Meadows, Claire – Aerospace Industry
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3. LIST OF TABLES/FIGURES/GRAPHS
Table 1
Transformational elements vs Transactional elements
Table 2
Summary of Selected Practices in Leadership Development
Table 3
Summary of Differences between Leader Development and Leadership
Development
Figure 1
Hersey Blanchard’s Behaviours – Situational leadership
Graphs
Survey results graphs – section 6.3
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4. INTRODUCTION
A Project manager must meet certain goals in their projects, they should be on time, on budget, quality aspects met and safety targets maintained. The PMBOK Guide describes three characteristics of an effective Project Manager – 1) Knowledge 2) Performance and 3) Personal.
1. Knowledge about Project Management, for example writing a project plan or developing a schedule. 2. Performance - what can the project manager actually accomplish? Can they keep the project moving forward?
3. Personal – The Project Manager’s attitude, personality and leadership, how does the Project
Manager interact with stakeholders?
The PMBOK Guide describes eight interpersonal skills that good Project Managers possess.
Leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision making, political and cultural awareness, and negotiation, many of these interpersonal skills relate directly to influencing others to do what is required for the project to be delivered on time, on budget and to the required quality. Project Managers do not always have the formal authority over people so their ability to influence is very important. It is easier to manage via authority than through leadership, but leadership is far more effective as it builds trust and respect. The Project Manager needs to consider various styles of leadership available throughout the project life cycle and set the scene accordingly.
PMBOK guide describes leadership as “The ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve project success. It enables the project to proceed in an environment of change and uncertainty”
The role of leadership in a project is to maintain and promote the project vision, reinforce positive relationships, build an environment that supports effective team work, raise moral and empower and inspire the individual. A leader ensures that exceptional events during the project life cycle are properly addressed and resolved. Projects do not always go well, and a leader who can see an opportunity rather than a threat will help to motivate the team through a challenging period. A leader represents and provides a service to those that they lead. Sensing what people need in order for them to perform most effectively is key to selecting which leadership style and activity is most appropriate. Leadership is important for various reasons, Leadership can transform potential into reality, and with the correct leader in place it could lead employees/organisations towards great accomplishments.
Leadership can organize a group of thoughts in certain directions. If one person can stand up and lead a group of people, they will become better organized and inspired to get things done.
It is clear from the PMBOK guide that having the correct Leadership styles will help towards Project
Managers becoming successful and eventually this should lead to Project Success. This was something that needed to be understood further and as part of a Group Project for MSc Project
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Management Module, the group undertook the challenge to answer the question “How does leadership style impact on project success” and can these leadership styles be narrowed down to a particular style and do different industries display different traits.
To answer this question we firstly conducted research into what is Leadership, what are the types of leadership styles that have been studied and compared, then looking at how this relates to project management. Have these leadership styles been related to project management and project success.
There are many leadership styles that have been researched, documented and updated over the years so we focused our research on some of the most prominent leadership styles and those which appeared to feature with our respective industries.
However in conducting this research we identified that there are apparent gaps in the research that links Leadership Style to project management and project success, we therefore set about gathering our own research across the companies and industries we work within to see which leadership styles were demonstrated and if there is belief that these leadership styles relate to project management.
This research lead us to adapt the question “How does leadership style impact on project success, in particular Transformational and Transactional styles and do different industries display varying traits”
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5. LITERATURE REVIEW
5.1
Leadership and Management
The PMBOK (2000) defines leadership as ‘developing a vision and strategy, and motivating people to achieve that vision and strategy’ Where as the APMBOK (2006) defines leadership as ‘the ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve project success. It enables the project to proceed in an environment of change and uncertainty’.
These two examples clearly demonstrate that leadership involves relaying the vision to the people and working with them to achieve the purpose, in this case to deliver the project. Therefore it could be said that to be a successful project manager one must effectively direct and lead people meet the required project outcomes. APM clearly link the leadership to achieving project success. The
APMBOK goes on to address how the leader is there throughout the project lifecycle to manage events, ‘sensing what people need in order for them to perform most effectively is key to selecting which leadership style and activity is most appropriate.’
There is a wide range of research on leadership, leaders and leaders vs managers, particularly since the 1970’s of which we will explore, one of the common threads in the research is that there is no single style, and no one way to lead over another, that the leadership style needs to be adapted to the situation and that a Project Manager can be a leader, as can members of the project team.
Interglobe Consulting identifies that ‘Project Managers manage projects and people. This role requires management and leadership skills where the emphasise lies on managing the project data and leading the project team members’.
Laufer, A notes that ‘Distinguishing between management and leadership is helpful when you first begin shaping your attitude and developing your skills, but these roles are intertwined and indistinguishable once you become a successful project manager. What you actually become is a project leader’.
Where a leader directs, provides guidance, a vision and a path for people to follow Management looks at how this will get actioned. What plans are required, what resources are required. A manager will focus on systems, controls, the financials and short term goals, often related to their project, a leader will be looking at the longer term objective and will innovate, develop and focus on the people; a leader is a mentor and develops individuals in order to sustain the organisation going forward. A good leader is someone who can manage both of these, the role of a manager and the role of a leader. They can manage the task in hand, but they can also influence all levels within the organisation. 10
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In today’s business landscape, with the increase in pressure on organisations to become more competitive in the face of competition, the emphasis has changed in respect of the skills required by a project manager. Project managers are required to have leadership qualities to inspire, positively influence, lead by example and help them manage change in all aspects of the project, including people, the way they think and the outcomes they influence. This is in addition to the more traditional role of the project manager to concentrate on project delivery on time, within budget and to an acceptable quality. Gone are the days when project management was seen only as a technical competence area using a range of tools and techniques, regardless of the project manager’s leadership style.
What makes a good leader and what makes a good manager and does a good leader make a good manager? Yukl (2002) states that a person can be a good leader without being a manager and a person can be a manager without leading. He suggests that the two roles are equivalent, with overlaps and offers the argument that leadership and management are “qualitatively different and mutually exclusive” stating that in extreme cases both cannot exist in the same person.
However in Turner’s “People In Project Management” (2003), Partington offers that the titles of
‘project leader’ and ‘project manager’ are synonymous, and that many people in organisations view leadership and management as indistinguishable.
To explore this further it is first important to establish how ‘managing’ is different from ‘leading’.
Partington (2003) describes management as getting things done through people and states that project management now recognizes the need to manage people. Partington also defines leadership as the ability to influence the activities of a group of followers in their efforts to set and achieve goals. Rost (1991) also describes management as an authority relationship that exists between a manager and subordinates to produce and sell goods and services. Rost also describes leadership as a multidirectional influence relationship between a leader and followers with the mutual purpose of accomplishing real change.
Both definitions by Partington and Rost demonstrate that management can be considered a transactional function to provide results and that leadership is a transformational function.
Project management requires a combination of both styles to achieve results and therefore it is important that project managers reflect both styles in their approach to their work. Leading and managing are viewed as distinct processes by a number of scholars (Yukl, 2002) but they do not assume that leaders and managers are different types of people. It can be considered that to be a successful project manager that the individual is also a good leader.
Often the toughest task of being a leader is effecting change, by mobilising their resource, the people, through the organization to be adaptive. Adaptive work is usually required when deeply held beliefs need to be challenged.
It is critical to get an organization to adapt its behaviours in order to succeed within new business environments, without change in today’s markets companies would fail. Getting people to be
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adaptive is driven through leadership, however providing leadership and not just being authoritative figure is difficult.
Darr identifies that Management contains 4 key elements:
1. A process comprised of interrelated social and technical functions and activities
2. That accomplishes organisational objectives
3. Achieves these objectives through use of people and other resources
4. Does so in a formal organisational setting
Heifetz and Laurie 1997 developed six principles to ensure that management and employees embrace the challenges of what is captured as adaptive work.
1. ‘Get on the balcony – Don’t get swept up in the field of play. Instead move back and forth between the action and the balcony. You will spot emerging patterns, such as power struggles or work avoidance. This high level perspective helps you mobilize people to do adaptive work.’ 2. ‘Identify your adaptive challenge’ – Example: When the passengers of the airline British
Airways nicknamed it “Bloody Awful”. CEO Colin Marshall knew he had to infuse the company with a dedication to customers. He identified the ‘adaptive challenge’ as “creating trust throughout British Airways”. To fully understand the issues hen then deployed his team with employees and customers in baggage areas, reservation centres, and planes asking which beliefs values, and behaviours needed overhauling. ‘They exposed value-based conflicts underlying surface-level disputes, and resolved the team’s own dysfunctional conflicts that impaired companywide collaboration. By understanding themselves, their people, and the company’s conflicts, the team strengthened British Airways bid to become the world’s favourite airline’.
3. ‘Regulate distress’ - To inspire change, without disabling people, pace adaptive work,
First, let employee’s debate issues and clarify their assumptions.
Then provide the employee with direction and identify any key issues and values.
‘Maintain just enough tension, resisting pressure to restore the status quo’. Raise tough questions without making yourself anxious.
4. ‘Maintain discipline attention’ – Encourage managers to manage any varying issues. ‘Deepen the debate to unlock polarized, superficial conflict. Demonstrate collaboration to solve problems’. 12
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5. ‘Give the work back to employees’ – To instil self-confidence in the employees rather than dependence on yourself, support them rather than control them. Encourage risk taking and responsibility then back people up. Help them recognise they do have the answers.
6. ‘Protect leadership voices from below’ – Don’t silence whistleblowers, these creative minds and varying opinions can provoke fresh thinking. Ask, “What is this guy talking about? Have we missed something?”
Managers frequently derive their solutions to a problem and then try to sell it to some colleagues and bypass or sandbag others in the commitment building process. Too often, leaders, their team, and consultants fail to identify and tackle the adaptive dimensions of the challenge and to ask themselves, who needs to learn what in order to develop, to understand, to commit to and to implement the strategy? Therefore it can be argued that managers and leaders need to ‘adapt’ or change their style depending on the situation they find themselves within. A project manager needs to use the resources available to him or her to deliver the project, using the most effective methods.
Mary Follett (1868-1933) described the role of a manager as ‘the art of getting things done through people’, Henri Fayol (Learning-work (Feb 2013)) identified 5 key management traits as:
Planning – a vision, long term and short term plans, top down
Controlling – Move towards targets and monitors them, measures and reports
Commanding staff/Leading – Directing, coaching, enabling and motivation - leadership
Organising - Organisation structure, co-ordinate and direct resources
Coordinating – communicating with teams, other functions, other businesses
These 5 traits can all be related to the quote of Mary Follett as they revolve around working with people and providing them guidance in various ways, all of which need to be demonstrated by a
Project Manager and could be mapped into their role.
There is the element of Project Management which has been defined as ‘a management disciple that is differentiated from the management of an organisation’s business-as-usual by the fact that a project has a clear objective and deliverable’s with a defined start and end, that must be completed on time, within budget and to the agreed quality’. (APMBOK 2006)
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5.2
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Leadership Styles and Models
Over the years many people have researched leadership and numerous leadership theories have been developed to try and identify the key traits and styles which are available and in existence, as time has passed newer theories have been developed and many of the earlier perspectives have continued unabated creating a higher number of styles to consider, contract and reflect upon.
A review of the leadership literature reveals an evolving series of 'schools of thought’. The ‘earlier theories tend to focus upon the characteristics and behaviors of successful leaders, later theories begin to consider the role of followers and the contextual nature of leadership’ (Bolden et al 2003).
Due to the volume of research and theories it is not feasible to identify all within this research, however some of the more popular theories which have been argued and debated by a number of authors on Leadership are:
Myers Briggs Type Indicator Theory (MBTI)
Emotional Intelligence
Situational Leadership
Hay McBer – Coercive, authoritative, affiliatative, democratic, pace setting, coaching
Burns Transformational vs Transactional
L4
Passive Avoidant
Each style has a different approach and theory than another, with Situational focusing on the situation the leader finds them self within, through to transactional and transformational which looks at the relationship between the leader and follower and the leadership within an organisation. There are some similarities between these styles, with Emotional Intelligence and the situation being a key thread. These will now be explored in greater detail to review and access how if at all these can be related to Project Management, and if they related to the overall success or outcome of a project.
5.2.1
Myers Briggs Theory - MBTI
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, more frequently referred to as the MBTI, is considered as one of the most popular tools which provides a self-assessment report used in management and leadership development programs around the world. It is a way to provide information about a person 's preferred way of behaving, or their’ type’ and can be beneficial to build self-awareness and
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emotional intelligence.
The MBTI was developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Briggs. Together they developed a test that helps people to ‘understand their own behaviour as well as the behaviour of others’ (Pittenger) by trying to understand the ‘type’ of person. There was a belief that a person would fit into 1 of 16 types. Briggs and Myers identified that these 16 types could be grouped into 4 main personality categories with ‘opposite preferences’, these 4 dimensions are known as:
Extroversion (E) vs Introversion (I)
This dimension considers the ‘perceptual orientation’ of the person. An extrovert would react to immediate and objective conditions in the environment, whereas an Introvert would look inward to their internal and subjective reaction to their environment.
Sensing (S) vs Intuition (N)
Someone with a ‘sensing preference’ would rely on their perceptions of what is real, whereas people who are ‘intuitive’ would rely on their non-objective and unconscious perception. Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)
Someone who adopts the ‘Thinking preference’ would use their logic and rational processes to …show more content…
decide on an action whereas the ‘Feeling preference’ is based upon a subjective process and their own personal emotional reaction to a situation.
Judgement (J) vs Perception (P)
The judgement and perception preferences look to access if an individual is using rational or irrational judgments when interacting within their environment. Someone adopting the judgemental preference combines thinking and feelings when making decisions, whereas someone using their perception utilises their senses and intuition.
With each person falling into 1 preference from the 4 dimensions above, thus creating an individual
Type, i.e. someone who is an Introvert, with Sensing, Feeling and Perception would be characterised as ISFP.
Because the MBTI is a theory of types it categories a person into one overarching preference above all the others, one could have what is considered as a ‘complimentary style’ (an introvert, for example, could learn to be more extroverted when speaking in groups) but the one overarching preference will lead that persons ‘type’.
The MBTI test was intended for a person to be put into a ‘type’ and to remain in that characteristic, however when people have undergone a retest, at intervals of 1 month or up to 5 years later it’s been found that their ‘type’ has changed, and thus as argued by Pittenger raises questions over the stability of this test and how reliable it is to characterise people into 1 of 16 types. The MBTI test has
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been and is widely used across a range of industries and professions and does not specifically look at a Project Manager and the overall Project Success, questions have been raised on its reliance by hiring managers looking for a certain ‘type’ of person to fulfil a role within an organisation. Yet
Truskie (2011) describes how the ‘MBTI Assessment is an excellent tool for coaching leaders’ and how it helps them ‘understand how their individual preferences influence the way they shape the culture of their organisation’.
Although the MBTI does lean towards leadership types and is widely used across a vast range of industries it does not specifically relate to Project Management and how a leadership style could relate to project success and outcome.
5.2.2
Emotional Intelligence Model:
Daniel Goleman was the author who first related Emotional Intelligence to leadership in his book titled ‘Emotional Intelligence’ in 1995. He conducted research across nearly 200 global companies and established that “qualities traditionally associated with leadership – such as intelligence, toughness, determination, and vision – are required for success, they are insufficient. Truly effective leaders are also distinguished by a high degree of emotional intelligence, which includes selfawareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill” (Goleman 1998). He went on to identify that a high level of Emotional Intelligence is required to succeed, that an individual can be trained in leadership yet if they do not have a high level of EI then they will not make a ‘great leader’.
Goleman who is still the author most commonly attributed to Emotional Intelligence, or EI/EQ as it is commonly known, an extension to the previously identified notion that IQ was the basis behind intelligence however Goleman identified that EI is just as important as IQ and academic intellect is not sufficient. However it was actually the psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey (Mayer and
Salovey) who initially identified the concept of EI. In 1998, Daniel Goleman in 'Working with
Emotional Intelligence’; set out a framework of emotional intelligence (EI) which he then later updated in 2000.
Mayer and Salovey identified 4 key skills which a leader should master to gain success which were:
Self-Awareness
Self-Management
Social Awareness
Relationship Management
This model of EI competencies has been generated from research within hundreds of corporations
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and organizations to distinguish outstanding performers. Goleman expanded these skills to capture the following:
Emotional Self-Awareness
‘Having Self-Awareness means having a clear understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives and capabilities’ at any one time and how these can impact others.
Self-Management
Goleman says that ‘Self-Management frees us from being prisoners to our emotions. Without understanding what we’re feeling, we can’t control our feelings and this leaves us at the mercy of our emotions’. Self-Management is the ability to control or redirect our emotions, to think before acting and anticipate the outcome from an action to make it positive.
Social Awareness
Empathy – having social awareness, and being aware of other peoples emotions and perspectives, having Organisational awareness and customer awareness.
Social Skills
Having a vision, managing relationships and inspiring others, developing others, pulling the other factors together to achieve success, understanding conflict and managing it, team building, communicating and influencing others.
The Emotional Intelligence style has been used since the 1990’s and says ‘ the leader’s emotional intelligence has a greater impact on his or her success as a leader – and the performance of his or her team’ (Turner & Muller 2005). EI helps a leader to understand their own emotions, the emotions of others around them and how to get the best out of people, recognising that people are different and will react differently will assist the manager or leader to get the best out of their team. This theory starts to relate how the actions of the leader will impact and influence the team.
A project manager or a leader who is able to relate to individuals or to the team they are working with and being able to identify their needs will help the leader to be more successful, this will be explored further in section 5.4.
5.2.3
Situational Leadership Style
The Situational Leadership Style is what it implies, that certain styles are better suited to certain situations that a leader has the ability to change their style and are flexible enough to be able to do this. ‘An effective situational leader is one who can quickly change leadership style as the situation changes’ (Burke & Barron 2007).
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Blanchard and Hersey identified 4 key behaviour types of a Situational Leader which relate to the amount of direction and guidance a leader provides to the follower which will vary depending on the individual and or the situation, the 4 behaviours which they identified are:
Directing or ‘Telling’ Leadership
This style is effective for a follower or followers who require direction and guidance, they are generally enthusiastic and may be inexperienced thus the additional support would be welcomed.
This style would not be as welcomed with an experienced co-worker who may have been doing the task for a considerable time. A leader using this style would need to define the roles and the responsibilities of the followers.
Coaching or ‘Selling’ Leadership
This style is less direct as previous but does still provide a degree of guidance, this would be used in a situation where the team had some experience and are willing to conduct the task but still require that guidance and coaching as they do not have all of the required skills, this would help them to build on their ability for future tasks.
Supporting Leadership
This style would be used if the team or individual lacked confidence and required the additional support, they are skilled and experienced but for whatever reason they need their confidence lifted, thus the support of a leader would help to engage and build those confidence levels back up.
Delegating Leadership
This style would be used when the team or individuals were competent and experienced and have the commitment to the task. The leader would empower the individual and would not be required to direct, coach or support to the same levels as the previous situations. This style would build trust amongst the team and can often lead to higher levels of motivation.
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Figure 1 below adapted from Hersey Blanchard helps to demonstrate when each of the behaviours would be used.
Supportive Behaviour
High
Supporting
Coaching
Delegating
Directing
Low
Directing Behaviour
High
These 4 behaviours would not lend themselves to every situation, therefore it takes a skilled and experienced leader to identify what is appropriate for their team and when each style should be adopted. There may be a team of mixed abilities working on a project which would require a leader to switch styles many times during a working day. Understanding the mixed levels of ability and mixed levels of willingness to support will assist the leader to establish which of the 4 behaviours is most appropriate to use.
This Situational Leadership style can be related back to the Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence style which we reviewed earlier where Goleman recognises that a leader needs to have EI to understand the situation they are dealing with, having social awareness and social skills can be related to Blanchard’s and Hersey’s Coaching and Supporting Leadership styles, where the leader has identified the needs of the group and can guide as appropriate.
5.2.4
Hay/McBer Leadership Style
Another key contributor to leadership styles using a quantitative method is that of consultants Hay
McBer, whereby they took 3,871 executives worldwide as a random sample of 20,000 executives and found six distinct leadership styles, each which can be related to the elements of Goleman’s
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Emotional Intelligence which we have just reviewed. This study demonstrated that leaders who are successful do not use one leadership style, that they will use most of them, depending on the situation, as we have also just seen with the Blanchard and Hersey ‘Situational Leadership Style’, the six leadership styles identified by Hay/McBer are:
The Coercive Leader - Demand immediate compliance.
The coercive style emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: drive to achieve, initiative and self-control. The research suggested people who use this style use an extreme top down decision making approach and often demand immediate compliance ‘ do what I say’. Of the 6 leadership styles, the research revealed this style is the least effective in most situations because of its impact on the environment and that it can lead to demotivation of employees. The study suggests that this style should only be used during a genuine emergency, but should be used with great care.
The Authoritative Leader - Mobilises people towards a vision.
The authoritative leader emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: self- confidence, empathy, and change catalyst. The research indicated that the authoritative style is probably the most effective, having a positive impact on all environmental factors.
The authoritative leader is enthusiastic, clear and is able to maximize commitment to the organization’s goals and strategy.
‘The authoritative leader is extremely adept at stating a vision, identifying the standards that reinforce the vision, and providing performance feedback’ this clearly states if the vision has or has not been achieved. This type of leader provides people with the flexibility required to achieve their goals and is stating ‘come with me’.
The approach works well in the majority of situations and particularly when the organisation is not in line with its goals. A time when this style is less appropriate is when the leader is working with people more experienced than him or her.
The Affiliative Leader - Creates an emotional bond and harmony
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: empathy, building relationships, communication. The affiliative leader believes ‘people come first’ and consequently tries to create harmony by building strong emotional bonds. The approach increases team communication, as people will start to share their ideas with one another which in turn increases inspiration. Flexibility will also be improved as people are given the responsibility and empowerment to conduct their jobs in the way they consider to be most effective.
The Affiliative style is ‘a good all-round approach’, and is particularly useful when trying to ‘build harmony, increase morale, improve communication or repair a breakdown in trust.’ This style is most effective when used with another style, as its emphasis on praise and in some cases can tend to not address poor performance when required. This approach when used in isolation without another style can fail to provide clear direction and is therefore recommended to use in conjunction with the
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authoritative style.
The Democratic Leader - Builds consensus through participation
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence characteristics: collaboration, team leadership and communication. This approach is based on letting people have a say, voice their ideas and support the project at hand. This approach builds trust and commitment, will increase employee flexibility and maintains high morale. It works well in situations if the leader is uncertain about the future direction and looks to experienced employees for ideas and guidance.
The approach is less likely to work where employees lack the competence, knowledge or experience to offer sound advice. It can be particularly inappropriate in times of crisis.
The Pace-Setting Leader - Expects excellence and self-direction
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence characteristics: conscientiousness, drive to achieve, and initiative. The pace-setting leader will set themselves a high performance standard to maintain and will expect others to meet them also. Those who are unable to measure up are likely to be replaced in the team. The pace-setter does not trust employees to work in their own way or to use their initiative, they often do not provide feedback. This results in this style in destroying what was previously a positive work environment, employees consider themselves inferior and that they will never meet expectations which results in reduced morale. This style is not one that should be over used.
However, this style can work if an employee is self-motivated, is skilled and only requires a minimum amount of leadership, coordination and direction.
This style can often be found in teams of accountants, lawyers, researchers and technicians.
The Coaching Leader
Develops people for the future
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: empathy, developing others and self-awareness. A coaching leader will help employees to identify their strengths and weaknesses and help them to map these to their own personal career goals. This leader will encourage employees to develop a personal development plan for their career. They are good at delegating and therefore provide the employee with challenging assignments.
The research suggested that this coaching style was the least used of the six styles; probably most leaders thought it was too time-consuming. However, it can improve results by increasing flexibility and commitment. It works best with employees who are already aware of their strengths and weaknesses and really want to be coached. The approach is best avoided if employees are resistant to change and learning, or the leader lacks the expertise to be a good coach.
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The results of the Hay/McBer study clearly shows leaders utilising these styles will see
positive results, however those who master the following 4 styles will have the greatest positive impact – the authoritative, democratic, affiliative, and coaching styles create the very best work environment and business performance, and that leaders need to be given the flexibility from the organisation to be able to flux between them.
However we can also see a relationship between the 4 Situational Styles of Blanchard and Hersey, both of which have a style which relates to Coaching, and a leader coaching the individuals. They
Hey/McBer Democratic style could be related to Blanchard and Hersey’s Supportive style and their directing style could be related to Hey/McBer’s Pace-setting leader.
By looking at these last 3 theories we can quickly see how these can be intertwined, Emotional
Intelligence and being aware of the situation a leader is within needs to balanced. Project managers will see themselves in various situations, often with different teams with varying experience levels therefore having the Emotional Intelligence to be able to understand and balance the situation is required to have an improved chance of being successful.
5.2.5
L4 Leadership Model
The L4 Leadership strategy model was developed by Stanley J Truskie who believes that a leader can help to shape the culture of an organisation. His L4 Strategy has been ‘successfully used in coaching thousands of leaders from Fortune 500 companies, businesses, hospitals, and non-profit organizations. The L4 model has been widely endorsed by executives, managers, and supervisors who have applied the model and have reported positive results’. These leaders were introduced to this model by using the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), which was supplemented with information contained within his book ‘Leadership in High-Performance Organisaitonal cultures’. The idea behind the L4 model is for the organisational culture, and the importance of this, to be understood by the leader and how this culture can be utilised to improve upon organisational results.
The L4 model contains considers 4 cultural patterns which relate to the performance of a company, if this model containing the 4 patterns is adopted by an organisation Truskie believes that it will lead to increased ‘effectiveness’ and ‘enhanced performance’. These four culture patterns have been identified as:
Cooperation cultural Pattern
This pattern based on the family/team concept, it includes positive elements such as cooperation, team work, sharing, diversity, and collaborative problem solving.
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Inspiration cultural Pattern
This looks at the individual and the importance placed on treating people as individuals, not just within their employment but within their lives also. Positive elements have been identified as job challenge, engagement, recognition, career planning, and training and development which enhance worker motivation and inspiration.
Achievement cultural Pattern
Considers the organisational performance and what is required to achieve the greatest possible performance. It includes discovery, innovation, and competition, being the best, and striving for excellence. Consistent cultural Pattern
This looks at consistency and the discipline which is required to achieve this. This can be created by creating an organisational culture of order, rules, standardization, planning, follow-through, and measurement. Each of these 4 leadership types can be related to the MBTI, for example Cooperation relates to the
MBTI – Sensing/Feeling, Inspiration leads to MBTI – Intuition/Feeling, Consistent relates to MBTI
Sensing/Thinking and the final leg of L4 – Achievement, relates to MBTI Intuition/Thinking. One thing that Truskie does identity is that there is no ideal MBTI Profile, that it will vary depending on the situation and people.
5.2.6
Transactional and Transformational Leadership
Transformational Leadership was initially documented by James MacGregor Burns which proposed that transformational leadership “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”, thus the leader needs to bring the follower, or the team, with them to achieve higher motivation, and that it is a two-way process where the followers can become leaders. Burns’ notion of this leadership style was that the leader recognizes their team and drives them to place so they all drive towards the common end goal via joint values and principles.
Bernard Bass later developed Burns’ concept and proposed that transformational leadership is actually a one way process where it is the leader alone who transforms the followers, or the team.
Bass identified that a transformational leader may:
•
“Expand a follower’s portfolio of needs”
•
“Transform a follower’s self-interest”
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•
“Increase the confidence of followers”
•
“Elevate followers’ expectations”
•
“Heighten the value of the leader’s intended outcomes for the follower”
•
“Encourage behavioral change”
•
“Motivate others to higher levels of personal achievement (Maslow’s ‘self-actualization’)”.
This you can see is aligned to a one way stream. Bass did identify that “Transformational leadership is closer to the prototype of leadership that people have in mind when they describe their ideal leader, and it is more likely to provide a role model with which subordinates want to identify”.
A transactional leadership style follows the more traditional model of leadership looking at the organizational level and the organization/project needs, whereas the Transformational style focuses more at lower level needs of the individuals. It could be said that a transactional leader is looking for such a transaction, whereby they exchange one thing for another.
Transactional leadership is a “‘give and take’ working relationship – rapport between leader and follower is established through exchange, such as a rewards system for meeting particular objectives”
(Lai 2011).
Bass summarizes this Transactional leadership style a ‘leader gets things done by making promises of recognition, pay increases, and advancement for employees who perform well’. By contrast, employees who do not do good performance are penalized. Bass states – ‘this promise and reward for good performance, or threat and discipline for poor performance – characterizes effective leadership’. Bass goes on to state that ‘organizations whose leaders are transactional are less effective than those whose leaders are transformational’ (p22)
Transactional leaders are looking at shorter term goals, will operate within current systems and processes and will look to meet the bottom line to achieve short-term profits. These types of leaders tend to be very preoccupied with power and the organizational politics.
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Table 1 below defines elements between Transactional and Transformational leadership styles can be seen below:
TRANSFORMAITONAL elements
TRANSACTIONAL elements
Idealized influence – leader as a role model to Contingent Reward – effective transaction their followers, importance of trust within the and exchange between leader and followers team Inspirational Motivation – leader demonstrate Management-by-Exception – leader actions enthusiasm and is optimistic, commitment to a to prevent or resolve problems shared goal, looks to the future, is confident
Intellectual Stimulation – creativity, encourages Laissez-Faire
Leadership
– more individuals to look at things in new ways, will distant/avoidant leadership approach offer difference perspectives
Individual consideration – develop their followers, take on the role of a mentor/coach, will teach and recognise individuals have different needs.
Idealised Attributes - instils pride in people, builds trust, displays a sense of power and personal sacrifice.
Both kinds of leadership are necessary. The transactional leader is more traditional focusing on the organization and the needs to deliver, whereas the transformational leader is more open to the need for change and will react to the needs, vision, culture or challenges; they will look to work with the individuals to ‘transform’ them. Earlier within section 5.1 we saw how Partington and Rost have both identified that management is more of a transactional approach whereas leadership is more transformational. A transformational leader is more engaged with the individual and their needs, it helps them understand and make the most of their own personal interest but also those of the team and the wider organization. A leader who demonstrates this trait provides an individual with a sense of purpose and builds on the skills and abilities already available. These leaders help the individuals to develop their own skills and performance, by creating motivation, positive attitudes and values. They encourage people to aim higher, creates a sense of achievement thus helping to motivate and elevate the individuals/teams performance. A transformational leader has a high moral and ethical
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standard. These leaders create a high performing environment which leads to organizational success with a skilled, motivated team. Research shows that this type of leadership can be very effective, and often more effective than the transactional style. Bass argues that for firms to remain successful particularly those with a short product lifecycle a transactional leadership style needs to be adopted at all levels throughout the company. That only the transformational leader has the flexibility that is required (Pg 30-31).
Hooper and Potter (1997) expanded upon the key performance traits of a transformational leader and outlined the following 7 points:
1) Setting direction
2) Setting an example
3) Communication
4) Alignment
5) Bringing out the best in people
6) The leader as a change agent
7) Providing decision in a crisis and on the ambiguous
As a leader in the majority of project, teams or organisaitons these are all traits which will certainly help a team perform, ensuring the best can be made from the team available. A good project manager will want to use their resources at hand, the best of which is their team, thus bringing out the best in the team for group cohesion, making decisions and providing direction can lead to a successful project outcome.
Some of the research that has been conducted has indicated that female leaders will typically score higher than the male leaders in Transformational Leadership styles.
Muller and Turner (2006) recognize this transformational style as one of 4 key leadership areas, in their study they look to relate the various leadership styles to project management. In doing so they have recognized that there is limited literature linking the leadership style to project success.
5.2.7
Passive Avoidant
Bass and Avolio (2004) continued to refine the definition and characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership. Originally, both passive and active management by exception were placed as subscales of transactional leadership because they both focused on the exceptions of either passive management or active management. As they researched further, it became obvious to Bass and Avolio that there was a significant difference between management by exception (active) and
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management by exception (passive). Management by exception (active) is when a leader systematically approaches leadership in a proactive manner. Management by exception (passive) is where the leader is passive and doesn’t deal with problems, and often fails to address the problem even when it becomes chronic.
Bass and Avolio (2004) revised the construct of passive avoidant leadership by appointing management by exception (passive) as one of its subscales, when they found that the behavior of a leader exhibiting management by exception (passive) traits showed similar behavior to the leader with laissez faire traits. The passive avoidant leader has tendencies to avoid involvement in important issues and is most often not engaged with his or her followers. Bass and Avolio further explained that the passive avoidant style of leadership “has a negative effect on desired outcomes - opposite to what is intended by the leader-manager. In this regard it is similar to laissez faire styles or ‘no leadership’ both types of behavior have negative impacts on followers and associates”
As a result, Bass and Avolio (2004) reconstructed the passive avoidant leadership to include management by exception (passive) and laissez-faire as subscales. Consequently, by developing a higher-level construct of passive avoidant leadership, Bass and Avolio’s leadership styles now include transformational, transactional, and passive avoidant.
The two components of passive avoidant leadership include: (a) management by exception (passive), and (b) laissez faire.
Management by exception (passive): Passive management by exception occurs when a leader waits until the task or work is completed before assessing if a problem has occurred. Only at the end of a task and when a problem has been identified, or deviation from standards has taken place does the leader take corrective action. Standards are not made clear until after the mistake is made. Negative impact on follower job satisfaction and efficacy has been associated with the passive form of management by exception (Byer & Gray, 2006).
Laissez faire leadership: Transformational and transactional leaders are highly active in the way they lead (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio 1994, 1995, 2000), yet laissez faire leadership is the absence of leadership and the act of avoiding intervention when needed (Bass & Avolio, 1995; Stewart, 2006).
The laissez faire leader in essence offers no leadership to subordinates nor fulfills the expectations of his or her superiors. Studies such as the one conducted by Judge and Piccolo (2004), have shown the negative effects that laissez faire leadership style has on subordinate job satisfaction. In earlier studies, such as the one conducted by Lewin, Lippitt, and White (1939), found that the laissez faire leadership style had a negative impact on follower job satisfaction, as well as a negative influence on productivity rates. In essence, a person with a laissez faire leadership style is not really leading. The laissez faire leader avoids issues involving conflict or that require intervention (Kurland et al., 2010).
Because of the absence of leadership found in the passive avoidant leadership style, Bass and Avolio
(2004) indicated that the leader would have a negative impact on the performance of his or her followers. Passive avoidant leaders possess an ineffective style of leadership that passively
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disengages from their followers unless the situation becomes critical (Bass & Avolio, 2004). The passive avoidant leader will avoid engaging in important issues, is absent when needed, avoids decision-making, and will put off decisions on important inquiries.
Transformational or transactional leadership traits are not found in the passive avoidant leader (Bass
& Avolio, 2004).
As we have seen, there many theories behind leadership styles, only a few of which have been captured here.
Daniel Goleman (2000) quotes that ‘new research suggests that the most effective executives use a collection of distinct leadership styles – each in the right measure, at just the right time. Such flexibility is tough to put into action, but it pays off in performance. And better yet, it can be learned.’
Some of those will be explored within this study to understand their impact, if any, to project success, transactional and transformational leadership styles will be captured as part of the survey.
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5.3
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Project Success
Of course being a good leader and knowing what leadership style to adopt will not result in project success alone. Knowing what leadership styles impact on a project’s success is key, and knowing when such a style should be adopted is critical. As such, it is important to define what is meant by the term project success.
Classic textbooks define that a project is a success if it delivers on all agreed objectives, including scope, schedule, budget, quality, goals or strategic positions to be attained. However, during the project life cycle, the schedule, budget and specification appear to be the driving force to determining success, this may be due to the visible nature of these elements. When the project is complete and the end product has been used, success perspectives can drastically change and the net value of the product can effect retrospective judgements.
These changing perspectives mean that a project’s relative degree of success or failure may change over time. The Sydney Opera house is an example of this. The original 1957 project plan scheduled completion in 5 years for a cost of $7. The project actually took 13 years with a cost of $110M. In no doubt it was a severely problematic project with its constant missed deadlines and its financial overruns being reported extensively by the press to the Australian public. Retrospectively we now acknowledge that the project created an Australian icon and tourist attraction that has drawn many tourists and economic gain to Sydney which has exceeded the project costs many times.
One of the reasons people may have in finding it difficult to agree on project success definition is because there are two interconnected aspects in which project success or failure is determined.
Project success tends to describe success in relation to the project’s aims and objectives. Did the product meet expectations? Did the product add the expected value? Was it produced at the expected cost? Was the quality to the correct specifications? Was the final product delivered on time? Project success measurement may often take a long period of time. Expectations may not be realised for a number of years and this can present an issue for the project management team. The team will probably not be involved after the project implementation phase and as such may not see if the expectations are satisfied. It can be argued that it would be unfair to hold the project team accountable for project success.
Project Management success is comparatively simple to measure. An activity has to occur in a certain time, at a certain cost and to meet specific deliverables. Cost, time, quality and safety are usually the key measures for project management success. Recognizing that some elements of this definition of success may not be within the project management team’s influence, it is usually a simple process to determine success measures that can be attribute to the execution of a project.
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At times, project success and project management success can be in direct opposition. In the case of the Sydney Opera House, the end product is a huge project success yet the delivery of the project was 8 years late and massively over budget resulting in a project management failure.
Muller and Turner (2007) in their study of Project Success have identified that difference cultures will rate success differently, as will Project Managers in projects of varying complexity. A higher complexity project will rate customer satisfaction as determining the project success whereas a low complexity project will rate team satisfaction as the measure to determine project success. Muller and Turner (2006) have also identified that ‘a project managers’ success at managing his or her project is dependent on their competence, particularly their leadership style comprising emotional intelligence, management focus and intellect.’
Muller and Turner (2005) have however identified that the project success research to date does appear to exclude the Project Manager and their leadership style as a key success factor, and that despite there being numerous lists of the key success factors, that the Project Manager is not specifically mentioned. ‘Rarely does the literature on project success factors specifically or overtly mention the project manager and his or her leadership style and competence.’ (Muller and Turner
2005)
So how does a Project Manager know what leadership style they should adopt in order to successfully execute their project?
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5.4
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Project Managers Leadership Style
As we have seen there are many and varied leadership styles available to a Project Manager, yet how does a PM know which one to select, and should they adopt the same leadership style regardless of their team and project, or should it be tailored to suit the unique project. Hodgkinson states that ‘the program and project manager must determine the most appropriate leadership style for each project team’ and that they ‘should choose the correct leadership style based upon the Project and Project
Team requirements’. Within his study of this subject he has identified the numerous leadership styles, some of which we have already explored, but he goes on to identify several situations and factors where a PM needs to consider the leadership style as appropriate:
Maturity of the project team – a new team will still be forming and require guidance, an establish team is likely to need a more hands off PM approach
Maturity levels of the individuals – new hires will require more oversight than people who have been there for longer
Organizational culture – and the way of operating
Urgency of the situation – varying degrees of project urgency will often dictate various leadership styles.
Co-located team vs a virtual team who are likely to require a more direct leadership
The study conducted by Davis A, also acknowledges the need for the organization culture, the way of operating and previous history/experience as something the Project Manager must understand. In the leadership styles he reviewed he identified that the transformational style is the one most demonstrated by Project Managers. This is echoed in the article by InterGlobe Consulting who also recognize transformational leadership one of the most effective styles when managing projects and people. This work leans towards the earlier methods of situational leadership style, for the project manager to understand their team, and to then apply the appropriate style, for the project manager to understand their team, and to then apply the appropriate style, needing Emotional Intelligence to select the appropriate method.
Crawford et al, have shown that different project management approaches are appropriate for different projects, as are different leaderships styles to project success.
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Organisational Leadership and Development Programs
5.5
With the rapid pace of change in today’s business world, organisations face an increasing range of challenges that require their leader to develop skills to meet these challenges.
Leadership and leader development is a business activity that is now seen as key to the future by improving the bottom line performance of many organisations who invest in its development as they consider it a source of competitive advantage (Day, 2000).
Previously the measure of an organisation’s success was its property, not its people, however that view has changed and now organisations acknowledge that their wealth is in their employees realizing that should their employees become dis-satisfied and leave the organisation then this could have economic implications for the business, especially if employees leave for a competitor (Day,
2000).
Studies reported by the Centre for Creative Leadership (http://www.ccl.org/Leadership/index.aspx) show that investment in leadership:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Improves the bottom-line financial performance
Attracts and retains talent
Drives a performance culture
Increases organizational agility
There is a belief that leadership can be learnt; “leaders are made as much as they are born” (Craven and Torrance, 2004), “are leaders born or can they be taught?” (Turner, 2003). Much has been written about General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch transformation of the company and it’s approach to leadership training – GE spends around $1bn annually to train, educate and develop future leaders centred around Crotonville, GE’s global leadership institute. Leadership development is a strategic priority as the company strives to maintain it’s position as the preeminent company for leadership development (retrieved May 2014 from http://www.ge.com.careers/culture/university-students).
There are a wide range of companies who offer both management and leadership development to their existing and prospective employees. Vault (2008) provides an extensive guide to such programs run by some of the world’s leading organisations who place significant emphasis on their employees and invest in their leadership potential. Such programs are designed to “nurture leadership from entry-level to mid- and executive-level” with the belief that companies that companies that “invest in their emerging leaders reap the rewards of greater competitive advantage, now and in the future”
(Vault, 2008).
Yukl (2002) identifies three different forms of leadership development through formal training, developmental activities and self-help activities with the emphasis on learning from experience,
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coaching and mentoring and private study. Leadership development doesn’t necessarily remove the employee from the workplace for extended periods of time, although there may be short sessions of workshops and seminars conducted in classroom-type environments. It should be a continuous process that can take place anywhere with the emphasis on learning from work in real-time. This is supported by Lamoureux (2011) who states that from Fortune’s top 25 companies for leaders, most use the ‘70-20-10 model’ for developing their leaders. This ensures:
70% learning happens on the job and is experimental
20% through mentoring and feedback
10% through formal training
From a review of programs in Vault’s Guide (2008), it appears that a 2 year program is typically offered by the organisations who excel in leadership development.
Day (2000) summarises in Table 1 the most common practices covered in programs of leadership development. The effectiveness of leadership development programs is dependent on factors that include the culture of the company to facilitate or inhibit the learning process and support from senior management (Yukl, 2002) and it is important to distinguish the difference between leader development and leadership development. In leader development, the emphasis is on individualbased knowledge, skills and abilities associated with formal leadership roles whilst developing intrapersonal competencies. However leadership development is focused on developing social skills, building relationships with the ability to network and co-operate with others within the organisation and beyond (Day, 2000).
The differences between leader and leadership development summarized by Day is shown in Table 2.
The development targets for both are the same as those set out initially by Mayer and Salovey, then
Goleman in the framework for Emotional Intelligence.
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Table 2. Summary of Selected Practices in Leadership Development
Practice
Description
Development Target
Human
Capital
Social
Capital
Strengths
Weaknesses
Overwhelming amount of data; no guidance on how to change; time and effort (C, S)
360-degree feedback Multi-source ratings of performance, organised and presented to an individual
Self knowledge,
Behavioural change
✓
X
Comprehensive picture: broad participation (A)
Coaching
Practical, goal focused form of one-on-one learning
Self knowledge,
Behavioural change,
Career development
✓
?
Personalised; intensive (C, S)
Advising/developmental relationship, usually with a more senior manager
Broader understanding,
Advancement catalyst,
Lessons learnt/avoid mistakes ✓
Networks
Connecting to others in different functions and areas
Better problem-solving,
Learning who to consult for project help,
Socialization
?
✓
Builds organisation (S)
Ad hoc; unstructured (A)
Job Assignments
Providing 'stretch ' assignments in terms of role, function or geography Skills development,
Broader understanding of the business
✓
?
Job relevant; accelerates learning (C)
Conflict between performance and development; no structure for learning (A, S)
Action Learning
Project-based learning directed at important business problems
Socialization, Teamwork
Implementation strategy
✓
✓
Tied to business imperatives; action-oriented
(C,S)
Time intensive; leadership lessons not always clear; overemphasis on results (A)
Mentoring
?
Perceived stigma (remedial); expensive Strong personal bond (S)
Peer jealousy; over dependence; (A, C)
Note: ✓= intended development target; x = not an intended development target; ? = possible development target
A = assessment; C = challenge; S = support
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Leadership Development: A Review in Context (David V. Day, Pennsylvania State University)
Leadership Quarterly, 99(4), 581-613, ISSN: 1048-9843
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Table 3. Summary of Differences between Leader Development and Leadership Development
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Development Target
Comparison Dimension
Leader
Leadership
Capital Type
Human
Social
Leadership Model
Individual
Personal Power
Knowledge
Trustworthiness
Relational
Commitments
Mutual Respect
Trust
Competence Base
Intrapersonal
Interpersonal
Skills
Self-awareness
Emotional awareness
Self confidence
Accurate self image
Self-regulation
Self-control
Trustworthiness
Personal responsibility
Adaptability
Self-motivation
Initiative
Commitment
Optimism
Social Awareness
Empathy
Service orientation
Political awareness
Social skills
Building bonds
Team orientation
Change catalyst
Conflict management
Leadership Development: A Review in Context (David V. Day, Pennsylvania State University)
Leadership Quarterly, 99(4), 581-613, ISSN: 1048-9843
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This section has concentrated so far on the literature on leading US/global organisations who devote millions of dollars on leadership development. At the other end of the scale, a subcontractor company operating in the engineering construction sector of industry has developed it’s own in-house leadership development program.
The views were sought of ALE’s Chris Hines, Global Recruitment, Learning and Development
Manager for the heavy-lift service provider on the ALE in-house Leadership Development
Program (LDP) to determine the aims and background to the program, which was implemented during 2013 with a pilot course run in the Middle East branch.
Hines states “the business is thriving and growing, with an existing platform of quality people and equipment. There has been a realization at board level that the level of investment in equipment has not been echoed in people investment and this is likely to have an impact on the business, possibly inhibiting growth. Leadership Development sits at the front of a Learning and
Development agenda designed to address this gap” (Hines, C., 2014, pers. comm., 27 April).
According to Hines, the specialized nature of the business means that it takes anywhere up to 5 years to optimize the potential of employees. The effect of this is that there is a risk of succession leadership candidates not being available as new locations are opened and begin to grow. In addition, leadership plays an instrumental role in nurturing and retaining talent. The rate of growth of the business currently is bringing this potential gap into sharper focus.
It is intended that measures will be implemented to gauge the effectiveness of the LDP however it is thought that the benefits will be seen in the medium to long term, as the LDP was introduced in one region in 2013 it is considered too early to see this. Measures suggested include engagement survey scores, employee turnover rates and numbers of employees progressing into key roles within their current business unit. As such, there is no data available yet to use for comparison purposes to judge the program’s effectiveness.
Candidates for the LDP are indentified by their branch managers as potential leaders and nominated for entry onto the program. Hines considers that the business is still currently tight knit enough for this to be successful. There are plans for implementing a more systematic process for candidate selection with the launch of a new Human Resource Management
Information system in the next 12 to 24 months.
The LDP is based on a range of materials available commercially and familiar to Hines who has experience in delivering such training, translating the materials into pragmatic outcomes which people can take and use in their jobs. Hines believes most leadership material is in some way, shape or form a variation of something else; the ALE LDP is a people - behavioural centered
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program - the objective of which is to help leaders become more self-aware / aware of others, have a better understanding of what they value and what they can authentically use to positively influence others, improving their communication skills, working out how best to use their time to achieve their goals for the benefit of themselves, their teams and the business.
This aligns perfectly with Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence theory. Hines believes it is not a
‘one size fits all process’ - it should be almost unique for each participant and having delivered some of the content previously, Hines has structured the LDP for ALE specifically and has high hopes for the program.
Within the aerospace industry the Boeing company has its own purposefully created Leadership
Centre, a focal point for training and for leaders across the globe to come together for standardized training programs as the company strongly believes ‘as our leaders grow, our company grows’.
These programs take employees into management roles, train from management to leadership and at an executive level has leaders teaching leaders, a way of current leaders helping to train and lead, through teaching their personal experiences to tomorrow’s leaders.
These courses are open to Project Managers, and there is a specific project management course where PMs from across the globe come together to learn the project management techniques and leadership techniques to bring these together.
By having one focalized location, people cannot be distracted by their ‘day job’ and it brings together a forum of networking for people to link and help each other when they return to their respective sites and programs.
Boeing is very focused on developing their talent, ‘in fact, nearly 95 percent of today 's senior leaders were promoted from within our workforce. Developing our leadership pipeline is as important to our senior leadership team as is delivering quality products and services to our customers’ (Boeing Leadership Centre)
However not all agree that these leadership development programs are a success, Bass argues that despite the ‘many successes’ seen with these programs that ‘many executives still feel leadership is like the whether’. That you can discuss it but little can actually be done about it.
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Leadership Survey Strategy
As part of the Group Project Module the group had to develop a question around leadership
“How does leadership style impact on project success” to answer this question the group conducted an Literature review, developed a questionnaire based on the Multifunctional
Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). An analysis of the review and questionnaire then took place to determine what appeared in the research.
A literature review was carried out (see section 5.2) which identified that there are numerous
Leadership styles and theories, we focused on a number of key Leadership Styles as outlined below
Myers Briggs Type Indicator Theory (MBTI)
Emotional Intelligence
Situational Leadership
Hay McBer – Coercive, authoritative, affiliatative, democratic, pace setting, coaching
Burns Transformational vs Transactional
L4 Model
Each style and theory is different from others, but all have a lot of review and research material on them. But how does this link to Project Management and more importantly Project
Success. Muller and Turner have identified in their research that the Project Manager does not tend to be linked to the Project Success
Hodgkinson identified that a Project Manager needs to identify an appropriate leadership style for the project they are managing, but also a style which is appropriate for the team they are working with, varying factors in the project and with the team maturity and experience can drive requirements for different styles. However Davis noted that organisational culture could also play a factor, and therefore within our 4 industries which could lead to different cultures, do they have an influence on the project leadership style?
Crawford et al identified how leadership styles require a varying approach to project success and went on highlight the Transformational and Transactional styles.
We saw that a Transformational leadership style take actions to motivate their team, work for the good of their teams/organisation, they try to develop their team and have high ethical
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standards, they are very focused on their team/followers to encourage performance and to be seen as a role model.
A transactional leader is more organisational focused rather than employee, they are focused on the roles, issues, structure, policies and what is needed to deliver results.
These findings of the Literature review demonstrate there is a strong belief that leadership styles (Hay/Mcber 6 Leadership Styles and Burns Transformational and Transactional Styles) do impact project success and the best leaders also adapt their style to situation types.
With this linkage we wanted to further explore the Transactional and Transformational leadership styles and how people within our organisations view a relationship, if at all, between the leadership styles and project success.
To test this theory within our own organizations and to help validate our research, it was decided that a survey would be an appropriate method of collecting data. To ensure the effectiveness of the survey, the following objectives were taken into account during the survey design:
The survey should identify if Transformational and Transactional Leadership style traits are demonstrated by leaders within their organizations and gauge how effective the respondent feels their leader is.
It should determine if the respondents believe that Leadership Style impacts Project
Success.
The rating scales used must be clearly defined and appropriate.
We must be able to collect, collate and interpret the results ourselves
Where possible, if a well know survey has been developed to address our primary considerations, it should be considered for use, if agreed by the team and the Lecturer.
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Survey Development
After considerable research and attempts to design our own survey, a recommendation from a
HR Manager in the Oil & Gas Industry directed us to a web site called www.mindgarden.com.
Mindgarden.com is an independent publisher of psychological assessments and instruments, used by members of academia, consulting communities, organizations and for research purposes. They offer proven instruments from prominent professionals and feature two major types of instruments: Assessment Measures and Development Measures, including the
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ).
The MLQ has been used extensively in field and laboratory research to study transformational, transactional and passive/avoidant leadership styles and it assesses a full range of leadership behaviours and provides an assessment of the leaders’ effectiveness, as perceived by the respondent. There are two surveys: the Self Rating Form, where supervisors rate themselves as leaders, and the Rater Form, where associates rate their leaders. Both surveys were assessed to determine relevance to the dissertation question and it was agreed that the second survey, the Rater Form could be used as a tool for this dissertation.
A License to use, which allows researchers to use a Mind Garden instrument without support from Mind Garden in administering the instrument, was purchased for the MLQ.
With the MLQ agreed as the survey to use to identify Transformational and Transactional
Leadership Styles within our organizations, we needed a survey to collate respondents opinions to help answer our dissertation question; ‘Does Leadership Style influence Project Success?’
As no pre-existing survey could be found, a bespoke survey was created. This was achieved by constructing 20 supporting and contradictory statements regarding project success and leadership styles and asking respondents to reply if they believed the statement to be true or false. This need to construct a bespoke survey helps demonstrate the uniqueness our dissertation question is attempting to answer and supports Muller and Turner’s (1996) recognition that there is limited literature linking leadership style to project success.
To rate the surveys, a ‘Likert-type’ scale was applied to the questions, enabling us to tally up individual, organizational and overall survey responses. The MLQ asked respondents to judge how frequently each statement ‘fits’ a Leader they were describing. The respondents were asked to rate a Leader in accordance to the following classifications: Not at all, Once in a While,
Sometimes, Fairly Often, Frequently if not Always. The rating of the Project Success Survey was achieved by asking respondents to indicate if they believed the statements to be true, false or undecided. 42
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By applying numerical values to the appropriate responses, we can model and compare the results using graphical and statistical methods.
A copy of the survey can be found within Appendix 1.
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Survey Demographics
The team participating in this survey comes from a cross section of organizations within the private sector within different industries and as such we decided to distribute all three surveys to respondents within our own organizations. This variety of responses enabled us to conduct a cross-organizational comparison, as well as an overall picture on Leadership Style and its impact on Project Success and contributed substantially to our discussion and conclusions.
The industries represented within this group are:
Aerospace
Construction
IT
Oil & Gas EPC
Oil and Gas Upstream
Each of these has an engineering/technical aspect and is a private sector organisation therefore a common basis for comparison.
For the purpose of this dissertation, personal respondent details such as age, length of service, position, etc was not collected. This decision was intentional as we wanted to focus our surveys on the respondent’s beliefs on Leadership Style and its impact on Project Success, regardless of the age, experience, length of service, sex, etc, of the respondent.
6.2.1 Aerospace industry
The global aerospace and defence sector is valued at $920 billion (2009) which is predicted to be valued at $1190 billion by the end of 2014, of which the UK aerospace industry is an estimated value of $20 billion per year employing circa 250,000 people.
The largest share of the market goes to the USA at 59%, with 22% within Europe and 19% in
Asia-Pacific. Boeing holds the largest share of the market standing at 7.4% (figures taken from
Clearwater 2010).
The sample data use for this research is against leaders from mid level up to Managing Director and Project Managers within the leading organisation, from personnel working in the UK and the US, to try and take a broader range of responses, particularly bringing in the different cultural aspects.
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Freedman R has also conducted a study on leadership styles within the aerospace industry using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), as we have done ourselves. He noted that there was ‘evidence of transactional leadership approaches can be found in performance appraisal systems specifying criteria for acceptable or outstanding performance’ as seen within this particular aerospace company, he went on to recognise that ‘followers might expect pay increases, promotions, or other forms of recognition’.
Within the company sampled there is a high importance played on performance appraisals of individuals on an annual basis with an interim mid year review, this will then influence financial rewards and promotions, therefore you would expect to see a high transactional leadership trait demonstrated in the survey results.
6.2.2 Construction
Within the engineering construction industry, the sector that supplies specialised engineering solutions to for the transportation, erection and installation of heavy equipment was chosen for the purposes of the MLQ survey.
From within this sector, one service provider was chosen, ALE. Founded in the UK in 1982, ALE now has a global network of operating centres and a large fleet of heavy cranes, specialist transport and installation equipment providing a complete service from initial concept through to completed project across the world.
Renowned for exceptional project management and engineering intelligence, the business has grown to it’s leading worldwide market position with over 1,400 employees and a reported turnover for 2013 of €250 million. The head office remains in the UK and with operating bases located in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and the Far
East, the company is strategically positioned in major centres of industrial activity.
The company claims to “invest as much in our people as in equipment, with a world-class management structure to support our technical potential. So as well as having the best project managers and engineers available today, we’ll have the best tomorrow”, whilst employing
“dedicated professionals who work with our clients to achieve the very best results. We employ imaginative people at all levels within the company, who focus on developing innovative solutions for the most complex projects. We challenge conventional thinking, aspire beyond accepted limitations, and don’t stop until we have the smartest, most effective solution to each and every challenge.” (retrieved April 2014 from http://www.ale-heavylift.com).
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From late 2013, the company has embarked upon a leadership development programme, initially in the Middle East region and currently within the UK branch, to develop managers who are working in leadership roles. This is identifying with the statement above by investing in employees and promoting a transformational environment where innovation is encouraged at all levels.
Against this backdrop, the MLQ was distributed across the global business from Director level through the management team to Project Engineers.
The range of the population who were invited to participate in the MLQ covered a peer group from various branches and regions within the global organization, from South America, Europe,
Africa, Middle East, Far East and Australia.
32 questionnaires in total were distributed and with a 50% return rate, 16 surveys were completed and returned.
75% of the surveys returned were received from respondents from within the UK business, one from Europe, one from the Far East and one from the Middle East.
6.2.3 IT
The questionnaire was distributed in Information Technology industry among employees in lead roles in Software Development and Quality Assurance areas. Only 9 participants have responded with a completed survey.
6.2.4 Oil & Gas EPC
The Company surveyed is a leading FTSE Company with 6.3bn Dollar (US) revenue that provides integrated services across the Oil and Gas asset life cycle in 29 countries. Working across the international oil and gas industry, they help customers unlock the full value of their energy assets. The Company surveyed aims to attract, develop and retain the very best talent in the industry. And, guided by a clear set of values, they nurture a distinctive, delivery-focused culture. The Company has only recently established a Leadership development programme, and is viewed as a significant move forward which will help develop the business. Due to the nature of the Company (Engineering, procurement & construction) there is a high turnover of contracting staff, this leads the Company to lead towards a more transactional style of leadership
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“Transactional leadership is a “‘give and take’ working relationship – rapport between leader and follower is established through exchange, such as a rewards system for meeting particular objectives” (Lai 2011).
The recently established leadership program of the Company aims to develop the overall leadership style more towards the Transformational Leadership Style “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”,
The business unit survey is based in the UK within the Oil and Gas Industry involved in the engineering, procurement and construction of onshore and offshore client assets. A number of leaders from Project Managers, Site Managers, Construction Managers and Discipline Leads and were requested to populate the MLQ survey. With 46 issued and a return of 20 Questionnaires.
6.2.5 Oil and Gas Upstream
The company surveyed is a major player in The Upstream Oil & Gas Industry and focuses on exploring for new global oil and gas reserves and developing major projects where technology and know-how add value to the resource holders.
In the UK sector of the North Sea, they produce more than 12% of UK oil and gas, have interest in more than 50 fields, and operate more than 30 offshore installations, 30 subsea installation,
2 Floating Production Storage Offtake vessels (FPSO’s), 3 onshore gas plants and a marine terminal for the distribution of Natural Gas Liquids globally.
The organization states that its approach to Leadership Development is central to becoming the most competitive and innovative energy company and underpins this with its Leadership
Attributes, which define the behaviors expected of leaders. All employees moving into a
Leadership role for the first time within the organization are required to participate in a variety of mandatory Leadership Development Programs, requiring up to 2 years to complete.
Leadership development is given significant importance by the organization and by individuals within it; however, promotion, wages and bonuses are all directly linked to the annual performance review. This appears to provide conflicting messages to leaders by encouraging them to develop Transformational Leadership Styles for managing their team members, but rewarding those using Transactional methodologies. Analysis of the survey results will determine if these conflicting messages are visible within the leadership team.
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6.3
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Survey Analysis
For the purpose of this dissertation, all responses were considered valid and we have not censored any results as a consequence of scoring or ranking.
We are aware that there may be bias of either negative or positive results throughout, depending on the personal feelings and attitudes of the respondent at that point in time.
Within the surveys which were distributed to 5 different private sector organizations: Oil & Gas
Upstream, a total of 14 surveys returned; Construction, 18 surveys returned; IT, 8 surveys returned; Oil & Gas EPC, 20 surveys returned and Aerospace, 16 surveys returned. A total of 76 surveys have been returned, providing an overall response rate
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
LEADERSHIP
K Hobbs, C Meadows, R Bosunia, T Irvine, G Lambert
16/05/2014
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How does leadership style impact on project success, in particular
Transformational and Transactional styles and do different industries display varying traits ?
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Table of Contents
1. Acknowledgement
4
2. Abstract
5
3. List of Tables / Figures / Graphs
7
4. Introduction
8
5. Literature Review
5.1. Leadership and Management
5.2. Leadership Styles and Models
5.2.1. MBTI
5.2.2. Emotional Intelligence
5.2.3. Situational Leadership
5.2.4. Hay/McBer model which identified 6 distinct leadership styles
5.2.5. L4 model which contains …show more content…
four culture patterns
5.2.6. Transformational vs Transactional
5.2.7. Passive Avoidance
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5.3. Project Success
5.4. Project Managers Leadership Style
5.5. Organisational Leadership & Development Programs
6. Leadership Survey Strategy
6.1. Survey Development
6.2. Survey Demographics
6.2.1. Aerospace
6.2.2. Construction
6.2.3. IT
6.2.4. Oil & Gas EPC
6.2.5. Oil & Gas Upstream
6.3. Survey Analysis
6.3.1. Transformational Leadership
6.3.2. Transactional Leadership
6.3.3. Passive Avoidant Leadership
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6.3.4. Outcome of Leadership – Extra Effort
6.3.5. Outcomes of Leadership – Effectiveness
6.3.6. Outcomes of Leadership – Satisfaction
6.3.7. Project Success
6.4. Summary of results
7. Conclusions & Recommendations
72-73
8. Bibliography
74-77
Appendix 1 – survey
Appendix 2 – Working together in a group
78-80
81-86
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1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our group would like to express our thanks to the following persons for their help and support throughout the generation of this project
Dr Robin Henderson for his help support and guidance
The group for their continued support to one another throughout this assignment
Our families whilst we have been focused on these deliverables.
The many participants in answering our survey.
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2. ABSTRACT
This research paper looks to explore the various types of leadership styles that have been studied and implemented over the years and how these relate to Project Management, particularly looking for any consistencies between the leadership style being demonstrated and the relative success of the project. Does a leader fit into one style or do they adapt to the situation or project at hand
(different situations and dealing with different people require changes in leadership approach, especially where culture/national differences are present)?
The main questions we will look to explore and build on are 1. What do we mean by leadership, is a leader different from simply being a manager?
2. Identify key leadership styles, their attributes and the benefits of each style.
3. Specify what defines project success and how different leadership styles can improve the chances of success.
The literature review firstly focused on the difference between managers and leaders, Yukl (2002) states that a person can be a good leader without being a manager and a person can be a manager without leading. Rost (1991) also describes management as an authority relationship that exists between a manager and subordinates to produce and sell goods and services. Rost also describes leadership as a multidirectional influence relationship between a leader and followers with the mutual purpose of accomplishing real change. These initial findings suggested you could be one without being the other. However the findings of the literature review suggested that to be a
Successful Project Manager you should have leadership skills (Yukl, 2002) but they do not assume that leaders and managers are different types of people. It can be considered that to be a successful project manager that the individual is also a good leader.
The review then moved on to leadership where we various definitions of Leadership and various types of styles.
PMBOK guide describes leadership as “The ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve project success. It enables the project to proceed in an environment of change and uncertainty”
Mayer and Salovey identified 4 key skills that a leader should master to gain success which were: selfawareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management Goleman expanded these skills to capture the following: emotional self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills. Blanchard and Hersey identified 4 key behaviour types of a Situational Leader: directing or ‘telling’ leadership, coaching or ‘selling’ leadership, supporting leadership and delegating leadership we found that Situational Leadership style can be related back to the Daniel Goleman
Emotional Intelligence style theory, consultants Hay McBer, surveyed executives worldwide and found six distinct leadership styles, The Coercive Leader, The Authoritative Leader, The Affiliative
Leader, The Democratic Leader, The Pace-Setting Leader and The Coaching Leader each which can be related to the elements of Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence. By looking at these 3 theories we can
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quickly see how these can be intertwined.
This paper then moves on to look in detail at Transformational and Transactional styles. James
MacGregor Burns proposed that transformational leadership “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”.
Transactional leadership is a “‘give and take’ working relationship – rapport between leader and follower is established through exchange, such as a rewards system for meeting particular objectives”
(Lai 2011).
The literature review then looks at Project Success and if Leadership contributes to success. The findings demonstrate that there is a strong belief that leadership styles (Hay/Mcber 6 Leadership
Styles and Burns Transformational and Transactional Styles) do impact project success and the best leaders also adapt their style to situation types.
With this linkage we wanted to further explore the Transactional and Transformational leadership styles and how people within our organisations view a relationship, if at all, between the leadership styles and project success.
A questionnaire was developed which was based on the Multifunctional Leadership Questionnaire
(MLQ). The collated questionnaires showed a strong dominance between the Transformational and
Transactional Styles in both the Organisations Leaders and the Organisations in themselves, the results of the Survey support the literature review carried out (Muller and Turner), both the
Transformational and Transactional Styles appear to be as dominant.
The findings of the Literature review and the questionnaire demonstrate there is a strong belief that leadership styles (Hay/Mcber 6 Leadership Styles and Burns Transformational and Transactional
Styles) do impact project success, the best leaders also adapt their style to situation types.
In conclusion there are many leadership styles that are demonstrated by leaders, that the style does depend on the leader and the situation they are working within, and that although there are a number of authors and styles that there are common themes across them.
This has been generated as a team effort comprising of the following members:
Bonunia, Raquib - IT Industry
Hobbs, Karen – Oil and Gas Upstream Industry
Irvine, Thomas – Construction Industry
Lambert, Gary – Oil and Gas EPC Industry
Meadows, Claire – Aerospace Industry
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3. LIST OF TABLES/FIGURES/GRAPHS
Table 1
Transformational elements vs Transactional elements
Table 2
Summary of Selected Practices in Leadership Development
Table 3
Summary of Differences between Leader Development and Leadership
Development
Figure 1
Hersey Blanchard’s Behaviours – Situational leadership
Graphs
Survey results graphs – section 6.3
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4. INTRODUCTION
A Project manager must meet certain goals in their projects, they should be on time, on budget, quality aspects met and safety targets maintained. The PMBOK Guide describes three characteristics of an effective Project Manager – 1) Knowledge 2) Performance and 3) Personal.
1. Knowledge about Project Management, for example writing a project plan or developing a schedule. 2. Performance - what can the project manager actually accomplish? Can they keep the project moving forward?
3. Personal – The Project Manager’s attitude, personality and leadership, how does the Project
Manager interact with stakeholders?
The PMBOK Guide describes eight interpersonal skills that good Project Managers possess.
Leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision making, political and cultural awareness, and negotiation, many of these interpersonal skills relate directly to influencing others to do what is required for the project to be delivered on time, on budget and to the required quality. Project Managers do not always have the formal authority over people so their ability to influence is very important. It is easier to manage via authority than through leadership, but leadership is far more effective as it builds trust and respect. The Project Manager needs to consider various styles of leadership available throughout the project life cycle and set the scene accordingly.
PMBOK guide describes leadership as “The ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve project success. It enables the project to proceed in an environment of change and uncertainty”
The role of leadership in a project is to maintain and promote the project vision, reinforce positive relationships, build an environment that supports effective team work, raise moral and empower and inspire the individual. A leader ensures that exceptional events during the project life cycle are properly addressed and resolved. Projects do not always go well, and a leader who can see an opportunity rather than a threat will help to motivate the team through a challenging period. A leader represents and provides a service to those that they lead. Sensing what people need in order for them to perform most effectively is key to selecting which leadership style and activity is most appropriate. Leadership is important for various reasons, Leadership can transform potential into reality, and with the correct leader in place it could lead employees/organisations towards great accomplishments.
Leadership can organize a group of thoughts in certain directions. If one person can stand up and lead a group of people, they will become better organized and inspired to get things done.
It is clear from the PMBOK guide that having the correct Leadership styles will help towards Project
Managers becoming successful and eventually this should lead to Project Success. This was something that needed to be understood further and as part of a Group Project for MSc Project
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Management Module, the group undertook the challenge to answer the question “How does leadership style impact on project success” and can these leadership styles be narrowed down to a particular style and do different industries display different traits.
To answer this question we firstly conducted research into what is Leadership, what are the types of leadership styles that have been studied and compared, then looking at how this relates to project management. Have these leadership styles been related to project management and project success.
There are many leadership styles that have been researched, documented and updated over the years so we focused our research on some of the most prominent leadership styles and those which appeared to feature with our respective industries.
However in conducting this research we identified that there are apparent gaps in the research that links Leadership Style to project management and project success, we therefore set about gathering our own research across the companies and industries we work within to see which leadership styles were demonstrated and if there is belief that these leadership styles relate to project management.
This research lead us to adapt the question “How does leadership style impact on project success, in particular Transformational and Transactional styles and do different industries display varying traits”
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5. LITERATURE REVIEW
5.1
Leadership and Management
The PMBOK (2000) defines leadership as ‘developing a vision and strategy, and motivating people to achieve that vision and strategy’ Where as the APMBOK (2006) defines leadership as ‘the ability to establish vision and direction, to influence and align others towards a common purpose, and to empower and inspire people to achieve project success. It enables the project to proceed in an environment of change and uncertainty’.
These two examples clearly demonstrate that leadership involves relaying the vision to the people and working with them to achieve the purpose, in this case to deliver the project. Therefore it could be said that to be a successful project manager one must effectively direct and lead people meet the required project outcomes. APM clearly link the leadership to achieving project success. The
APMBOK goes on to address how the leader is there throughout the project lifecycle to manage events, ‘sensing what people need in order for them to perform most effectively is key to selecting which leadership style and activity is most appropriate.’
There is a wide range of research on leadership, leaders and leaders vs managers, particularly since the 1970’s of which we will explore, one of the common threads in the research is that there is no single style, and no one way to lead over another, that the leadership style needs to be adapted to the situation and that a Project Manager can be a leader, as can members of the project team.
Interglobe Consulting identifies that ‘Project Managers manage projects and people. This role requires management and leadership skills where the emphasise lies on managing the project data and leading the project team members’.
Laufer, A notes that ‘Distinguishing between management and leadership is helpful when you first begin shaping your attitude and developing your skills, but these roles are intertwined and indistinguishable once you become a successful project manager. What you actually become is a project leader’.
Where a leader directs, provides guidance, a vision and a path for people to follow Management looks at how this will get actioned. What plans are required, what resources are required. A manager will focus on systems, controls, the financials and short term goals, often related to their project, a leader will be looking at the longer term objective and will innovate, develop and focus on the people; a leader is a mentor and develops individuals in order to sustain the organisation going forward. A good leader is someone who can manage both of these, the role of a manager and the role of a leader. They can manage the task in hand, but they can also influence all levels within the organisation. 10
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In today’s business landscape, with the increase in pressure on organisations to become more competitive in the face of competition, the emphasis has changed in respect of the skills required by a project manager. Project managers are required to have leadership qualities to inspire, positively influence, lead by example and help them manage change in all aspects of the project, including people, the way they think and the outcomes they influence. This is in addition to the more traditional role of the project manager to concentrate on project delivery on time, within budget and to an acceptable quality. Gone are the days when project management was seen only as a technical competence area using a range of tools and techniques, regardless of the project manager’s leadership style.
What makes a good leader and what makes a good manager and does a good leader make a good manager? Yukl (2002) states that a person can be a good leader without being a manager and a person can be a manager without leading. He suggests that the two roles are equivalent, with overlaps and offers the argument that leadership and management are “qualitatively different and mutually exclusive” stating that in extreme cases both cannot exist in the same person.
However in Turner’s “People In Project Management” (2003), Partington offers that the titles of
‘project leader’ and ‘project manager’ are synonymous, and that many people in organisations view leadership and management as indistinguishable.
To explore this further it is first important to establish how ‘managing’ is different from ‘leading’.
Partington (2003) describes management as getting things done through people and states that project management now recognizes the need to manage people. Partington also defines leadership as the ability to influence the activities of a group of followers in their efforts to set and achieve goals. Rost (1991) also describes management as an authority relationship that exists between a manager and subordinates to produce and sell goods and services. Rost also describes leadership as a multidirectional influence relationship between a leader and followers with the mutual purpose of accomplishing real change.
Both definitions by Partington and Rost demonstrate that management can be considered a transactional function to provide results and that leadership is a transformational function.
Project management requires a combination of both styles to achieve results and therefore it is important that project managers reflect both styles in their approach to their work. Leading and managing are viewed as distinct processes by a number of scholars (Yukl, 2002) but they do not assume that leaders and managers are different types of people. It can be considered that to be a successful project manager that the individual is also a good leader.
Often the toughest task of being a leader is effecting change, by mobilising their resource, the people, through the organization to be adaptive. Adaptive work is usually required when deeply held beliefs need to be challenged.
It is critical to get an organization to adapt its behaviours in order to succeed within new business environments, without change in today’s markets companies would fail. Getting people to be
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adaptive is driven through leadership, however providing leadership and not just being authoritative figure is difficult.
Darr identifies that Management contains 4 key elements:
1. A process comprised of interrelated social and technical functions and activities
2. That accomplishes organisational objectives
3. Achieves these objectives through use of people and other resources
4. Does so in a formal organisational setting
Heifetz and Laurie 1997 developed six principles to ensure that management and employees embrace the challenges of what is captured as adaptive work.
1. ‘Get on the balcony – Don’t get swept up in the field of play. Instead move back and forth between the action and the balcony. You will spot emerging patterns, such as power struggles or work avoidance. This high level perspective helps you mobilize people to do adaptive work.’ 2. ‘Identify your adaptive challenge’ – Example: When the passengers of the airline British
Airways nicknamed it “Bloody Awful”. CEO Colin Marshall knew he had to infuse the company with a dedication to customers. He identified the ‘adaptive challenge’ as “creating trust throughout British Airways”. To fully understand the issues hen then deployed his team with employees and customers in baggage areas, reservation centres, and planes asking which beliefs values, and behaviours needed overhauling. ‘They exposed value-based conflicts underlying surface-level disputes, and resolved the team’s own dysfunctional conflicts that impaired companywide collaboration. By understanding themselves, their people, and the company’s conflicts, the team strengthened British Airways bid to become the world’s favourite airline’.
3. ‘Regulate distress’ - To inspire change, without disabling people, pace adaptive work,
First, let employee’s debate issues and clarify their assumptions.
Then provide the employee with direction and identify any key issues and values.
‘Maintain just enough tension, resisting pressure to restore the status quo’. Raise tough questions without making yourself anxious.
4. ‘Maintain discipline attention’ – Encourage managers to manage any varying issues. ‘Deepen the debate to unlock polarized, superficial conflict. Demonstrate collaboration to solve problems’. 12
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5. ‘Give the work back to employees’ – To instil self-confidence in the employees rather than dependence on yourself, support them rather than control them. Encourage risk taking and responsibility then back people up. Help them recognise they do have the answers.
6. ‘Protect leadership voices from below’ – Don’t silence whistleblowers, these creative minds and varying opinions can provoke fresh thinking. Ask, “What is this guy talking about? Have we missed something?”
Managers frequently derive their solutions to a problem and then try to sell it to some colleagues and bypass or sandbag others in the commitment building process. Too often, leaders, their team, and consultants fail to identify and tackle the adaptive dimensions of the challenge and to ask themselves, who needs to learn what in order to develop, to understand, to commit to and to implement the strategy? Therefore it can be argued that managers and leaders need to ‘adapt’ or change their style depending on the situation they find themselves within. A project manager needs to use the resources available to him or her to deliver the project, using the most effective methods.
Mary Follett (1868-1933) described the role of a manager as ‘the art of getting things done through people’, Henri Fayol (Learning-work (Feb 2013)) identified 5 key management traits as:
Planning – a vision, long term and short term plans, top down
Controlling – Move towards targets and monitors them, measures and reports
Commanding staff/Leading – Directing, coaching, enabling and motivation - leadership
Organising - Organisation structure, co-ordinate and direct resources
Coordinating – communicating with teams, other functions, other businesses
These 5 traits can all be related to the quote of Mary Follett as they revolve around working with people and providing them guidance in various ways, all of which need to be demonstrated by a
Project Manager and could be mapped into their role.
There is the element of Project Management which has been defined as ‘a management disciple that is differentiated from the management of an organisation’s business-as-usual by the fact that a project has a clear objective and deliverable’s with a defined start and end, that must be completed on time, within budget and to the agreed quality’. (APMBOK 2006)
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5.2
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Leadership Styles and Models
Over the years many people have researched leadership and numerous leadership theories have been developed to try and identify the key traits and styles which are available and in existence, as time has passed newer theories have been developed and many of the earlier perspectives have continued unabated creating a higher number of styles to consider, contract and reflect upon.
A review of the leadership literature reveals an evolving series of 'schools of thought’. The ‘earlier theories tend to focus upon the characteristics and behaviors of successful leaders, later theories begin to consider the role of followers and the contextual nature of leadership’ (Bolden et al 2003).
Due to the volume of research and theories it is not feasible to identify all within this research, however some of the more popular theories which have been argued and debated by a number of authors on Leadership are:
Myers Briggs Type Indicator Theory (MBTI)
Emotional Intelligence
Situational Leadership
Hay McBer – Coercive, authoritative, affiliatative, democratic, pace setting, coaching
Burns Transformational vs Transactional
L4
Passive Avoidant
Each style has a different approach and theory than another, with Situational focusing on the situation the leader finds them self within, through to transactional and transformational which looks at the relationship between the leader and follower and the leadership within an organisation. There are some similarities between these styles, with Emotional Intelligence and the situation being a key thread. These will now be explored in greater detail to review and access how if at all these can be related to Project Management, and if they related to the overall success or outcome of a project.
5.2.1
Myers Briggs Theory - MBTI
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, more frequently referred to as the MBTI, is considered as one of the most popular tools which provides a self-assessment report used in management and leadership development programs around the world. It is a way to provide information about a person 's preferred way of behaving, or their’ type’ and can be beneficial to build self-awareness and
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emotional intelligence.
The MBTI was developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Briggs. Together they developed a test that helps people to ‘understand their own behaviour as well as the behaviour of others’ (Pittenger) by trying to understand the ‘type’ of person. There was a belief that a person would fit into 1 of 16 types. Briggs and Myers identified that these 16 types could be grouped into 4 main personality categories with ‘opposite preferences’, these 4 dimensions are known as:
Extroversion (E) vs Introversion (I)
This dimension considers the ‘perceptual orientation’ of the person. An extrovert would react to immediate and objective conditions in the environment, whereas an Introvert would look inward to their internal and subjective reaction to their environment.
Sensing (S) vs Intuition (N)
Someone with a ‘sensing preference’ would rely on their perceptions of what is real, whereas people who are ‘intuitive’ would rely on their non-objective and unconscious perception. Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)
Someone who adopts the ‘Thinking preference’ would use their logic and rational processes to …show more content…
decide on an action whereas the ‘Feeling preference’ is based upon a subjective process and their own personal emotional reaction to a situation.
Judgement (J) vs Perception (P)
The judgement and perception preferences look to access if an individual is using rational or irrational judgments when interacting within their environment. Someone adopting the judgemental preference combines thinking and feelings when making decisions, whereas someone using their perception utilises their senses and intuition.
With each person falling into 1 preference from the 4 dimensions above, thus creating an individual
Type, i.e. someone who is an Introvert, with Sensing, Feeling and Perception would be characterised as ISFP.
Because the MBTI is a theory of types it categories a person into one overarching preference above all the others, one could have what is considered as a ‘complimentary style’ (an introvert, for example, could learn to be more extroverted when speaking in groups) but the one overarching preference will lead that persons ‘type’.
The MBTI test was intended for a person to be put into a ‘type’ and to remain in that characteristic, however when people have undergone a retest, at intervals of 1 month or up to 5 years later it’s been found that their ‘type’ has changed, and thus as argued by Pittenger raises questions over the stability of this test and how reliable it is to characterise people into 1 of 16 types. The MBTI test has
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been and is widely used across a range of industries and professions and does not specifically look at a Project Manager and the overall Project Success, questions have been raised on its reliance by hiring managers looking for a certain ‘type’ of person to fulfil a role within an organisation. Yet
Truskie (2011) describes how the ‘MBTI Assessment is an excellent tool for coaching leaders’ and how it helps them ‘understand how their individual preferences influence the way they shape the culture of their organisation’.
Although the MBTI does lean towards leadership types and is widely used across a vast range of industries it does not specifically relate to Project Management and how a leadership style could relate to project success and outcome.
5.2.2
Emotional Intelligence Model:
Daniel Goleman was the author who first related Emotional Intelligence to leadership in his book titled ‘Emotional Intelligence’ in 1995. He conducted research across nearly 200 global companies and established that “qualities traditionally associated with leadership – such as intelligence, toughness, determination, and vision – are required for success, they are insufficient. Truly effective leaders are also distinguished by a high degree of emotional intelligence, which includes selfawareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill” (Goleman 1998). He went on to identify that a high level of Emotional Intelligence is required to succeed, that an individual can be trained in leadership yet if they do not have a high level of EI then they will not make a ‘great leader’.
Goleman who is still the author most commonly attributed to Emotional Intelligence, or EI/EQ as it is commonly known, an extension to the previously identified notion that IQ was the basis behind intelligence however Goleman identified that EI is just as important as IQ and academic intellect is not sufficient. However it was actually the psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey (Mayer and
Salovey) who initially identified the concept of EI. In 1998, Daniel Goleman in 'Working with
Emotional Intelligence’; set out a framework of emotional intelligence (EI) which he then later updated in 2000.
Mayer and Salovey identified 4 key skills which a leader should master to gain success which were:
Self-Awareness
Self-Management
Social Awareness
Relationship Management
This model of EI competencies has been generated from research within hundreds of corporations
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and organizations to distinguish outstanding performers. Goleman expanded these skills to capture the following:
Emotional Self-Awareness
‘Having Self-Awareness means having a clear understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives and capabilities’ at any one time and how these can impact others.
Self-Management
Goleman says that ‘Self-Management frees us from being prisoners to our emotions. Without understanding what we’re feeling, we can’t control our feelings and this leaves us at the mercy of our emotions’. Self-Management is the ability to control or redirect our emotions, to think before acting and anticipate the outcome from an action to make it positive.
Social Awareness
Empathy – having social awareness, and being aware of other peoples emotions and perspectives, having Organisational awareness and customer awareness.
Social Skills
Having a vision, managing relationships and inspiring others, developing others, pulling the other factors together to achieve success, understanding conflict and managing it, team building, communicating and influencing others.
The Emotional Intelligence style has been used since the 1990’s and says ‘ the leader’s emotional intelligence has a greater impact on his or her success as a leader – and the performance of his or her team’ (Turner & Muller 2005). EI helps a leader to understand their own emotions, the emotions of others around them and how to get the best out of people, recognising that people are different and will react differently will assist the manager or leader to get the best out of their team. This theory starts to relate how the actions of the leader will impact and influence the team.
A project manager or a leader who is able to relate to individuals or to the team they are working with and being able to identify their needs will help the leader to be more successful, this will be explored further in section 5.4.
5.2.3
Situational Leadership Style
The Situational Leadership Style is what it implies, that certain styles are better suited to certain situations that a leader has the ability to change their style and are flexible enough to be able to do this. ‘An effective situational leader is one who can quickly change leadership style as the situation changes’ (Burke & Barron 2007).
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Blanchard and Hersey identified 4 key behaviour types of a Situational Leader which relate to the amount of direction and guidance a leader provides to the follower which will vary depending on the individual and or the situation, the 4 behaviours which they identified are:
Directing or ‘Telling’ Leadership
This style is effective for a follower or followers who require direction and guidance, they are generally enthusiastic and may be inexperienced thus the additional support would be welcomed.
This style would not be as welcomed with an experienced co-worker who may have been doing the task for a considerable time. A leader using this style would need to define the roles and the responsibilities of the followers.
Coaching or ‘Selling’ Leadership
This style is less direct as previous but does still provide a degree of guidance, this would be used in a situation where the team had some experience and are willing to conduct the task but still require that guidance and coaching as they do not have all of the required skills, this would help them to build on their ability for future tasks.
Supporting Leadership
This style would be used if the team or individual lacked confidence and required the additional support, they are skilled and experienced but for whatever reason they need their confidence lifted, thus the support of a leader would help to engage and build those confidence levels back up.
Delegating Leadership
This style would be used when the team or individuals were competent and experienced and have the commitment to the task. The leader would empower the individual and would not be required to direct, coach or support to the same levels as the previous situations. This style would build trust amongst the team and can often lead to higher levels of motivation.
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Figure 1 below adapted from Hersey Blanchard helps to demonstrate when each of the behaviours would be used.
Supportive Behaviour
High
Supporting
Coaching
Delegating
Directing
Low
Directing Behaviour
High
These 4 behaviours would not lend themselves to every situation, therefore it takes a skilled and experienced leader to identify what is appropriate for their team and when each style should be adopted. There may be a team of mixed abilities working on a project which would require a leader to switch styles many times during a working day. Understanding the mixed levels of ability and mixed levels of willingness to support will assist the leader to establish which of the 4 behaviours is most appropriate to use.
This Situational Leadership style can be related back to the Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence style which we reviewed earlier where Goleman recognises that a leader needs to have EI to understand the situation they are dealing with, having social awareness and social skills can be related to Blanchard’s and Hersey’s Coaching and Supporting Leadership styles, where the leader has identified the needs of the group and can guide as appropriate.
5.2.4
Hay/McBer Leadership Style
Another key contributor to leadership styles using a quantitative method is that of consultants Hay
McBer, whereby they took 3,871 executives worldwide as a random sample of 20,000 executives and found six distinct leadership styles, each which can be related to the elements of Goleman’s
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Emotional Intelligence which we have just reviewed. This study demonstrated that leaders who are successful do not use one leadership style, that they will use most of them, depending on the situation, as we have also just seen with the Blanchard and Hersey ‘Situational Leadership Style’, the six leadership styles identified by Hay/McBer are:
The Coercive Leader - Demand immediate compliance.
The coercive style emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: drive to achieve, initiative and self-control. The research suggested people who use this style use an extreme top down decision making approach and often demand immediate compliance ‘ do what I say’. Of the 6 leadership styles, the research revealed this style is the least effective in most situations because of its impact on the environment and that it can lead to demotivation of employees. The study suggests that this style should only be used during a genuine emergency, but should be used with great care.
The Authoritative Leader - Mobilises people towards a vision.
The authoritative leader emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: self- confidence, empathy, and change catalyst. The research indicated that the authoritative style is probably the most effective, having a positive impact on all environmental factors.
The authoritative leader is enthusiastic, clear and is able to maximize commitment to the organization’s goals and strategy.
‘The authoritative leader is extremely adept at stating a vision, identifying the standards that reinforce the vision, and providing performance feedback’ this clearly states if the vision has or has not been achieved. This type of leader provides people with the flexibility required to achieve their goals and is stating ‘come with me’.
The approach works well in the majority of situations and particularly when the organisation is not in line with its goals. A time when this style is less appropriate is when the leader is working with people more experienced than him or her.
The Affiliative Leader - Creates an emotional bond and harmony
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: empathy, building relationships, communication. The affiliative leader believes ‘people come first’ and consequently tries to create harmony by building strong emotional bonds. The approach increases team communication, as people will start to share their ideas with one another which in turn increases inspiration. Flexibility will also be improved as people are given the responsibility and empowerment to conduct their jobs in the way they consider to be most effective.
The Affiliative style is ‘a good all-round approach’, and is particularly useful when trying to ‘build harmony, increase morale, improve communication or repair a breakdown in trust.’ This style is most effective when used with another style, as its emphasis on praise and in some cases can tend to not address poor performance when required. This approach when used in isolation without another style can fail to provide clear direction and is therefore recommended to use in conjunction with the
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authoritative style.
The Democratic Leader - Builds consensus through participation
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence characteristics: collaboration, team leadership and communication. This approach is based on letting people have a say, voice their ideas and support the project at hand. This approach builds trust and commitment, will increase employee flexibility and maintains high morale. It works well in situations if the leader is uncertain about the future direction and looks to experienced employees for ideas and guidance.
The approach is less likely to work where employees lack the competence, knowledge or experience to offer sound advice. It can be particularly inappropriate in times of crisis.
The Pace-Setting Leader - Expects excellence and self-direction
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence characteristics: conscientiousness, drive to achieve, and initiative. The pace-setting leader will set themselves a high performance standard to maintain and will expect others to meet them also. Those who are unable to measure up are likely to be replaced in the team. The pace-setter does not trust employees to work in their own way or to use their initiative, they often do not provide feedback. This results in this style in destroying what was previously a positive work environment, employees consider themselves inferior and that they will never meet expectations which results in reduced morale. This style is not one that should be over used.
However, this style can work if an employee is self-motivated, is skilled and only requires a minimum amount of leadership, coordination and direction.
This style can often be found in teams of accountants, lawyers, researchers and technicians.
The Coaching Leader
Develops people for the future
This style emanates from the emotional intelligence competencies: empathy, developing others and self-awareness. A coaching leader will help employees to identify their strengths and weaknesses and help them to map these to their own personal career goals. This leader will encourage employees to develop a personal development plan for their career. They are good at delegating and therefore provide the employee with challenging assignments.
The research suggested that this coaching style was the least used of the six styles; probably most leaders thought it was too time-consuming. However, it can improve results by increasing flexibility and commitment. It works best with employees who are already aware of their strengths and weaknesses and really want to be coached. The approach is best avoided if employees are resistant to change and learning, or the leader lacks the expertise to be a good coach.
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The results of the Hay/McBer study clearly shows leaders utilising these styles will see
positive results, however those who master the following 4 styles will have the greatest positive impact – the authoritative, democratic, affiliative, and coaching styles create the very best work environment and business performance, and that leaders need to be given the flexibility from the organisation to be able to flux between them.
However we can also see a relationship between the 4 Situational Styles of Blanchard and Hersey, both of which have a style which relates to Coaching, and a leader coaching the individuals. They
Hey/McBer Democratic style could be related to Blanchard and Hersey’s Supportive style and their directing style could be related to Hey/McBer’s Pace-setting leader.
By looking at these last 3 theories we can quickly see how these can be intertwined, Emotional
Intelligence and being aware of the situation a leader is within needs to balanced. Project managers will see themselves in various situations, often with different teams with varying experience levels therefore having the Emotional Intelligence to be able to understand and balance the situation is required to have an improved chance of being successful.
5.2.5
L4 Leadership Model
The L4 Leadership strategy model was developed by Stanley J Truskie who believes that a leader can help to shape the culture of an organisation. His L4 Strategy has been ‘successfully used in coaching thousands of leaders from Fortune 500 companies, businesses, hospitals, and non-profit organizations. The L4 model has been widely endorsed by executives, managers, and supervisors who have applied the model and have reported positive results’. These leaders were introduced to this model by using the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), which was supplemented with information contained within his book ‘Leadership in High-Performance Organisaitonal cultures’. The idea behind the L4 model is for the organisational culture, and the importance of this, to be understood by the leader and how this culture can be utilised to improve upon organisational results.
The L4 model contains considers 4 cultural patterns which relate to the performance of a company, if this model containing the 4 patterns is adopted by an organisation Truskie believes that it will lead to increased ‘effectiveness’ and ‘enhanced performance’. These four culture patterns have been identified as:
Cooperation cultural Pattern
This pattern based on the family/team concept, it includes positive elements such as cooperation, team work, sharing, diversity, and collaborative problem solving.
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Inspiration cultural Pattern
This looks at the individual and the importance placed on treating people as individuals, not just within their employment but within their lives also. Positive elements have been identified as job challenge, engagement, recognition, career planning, and training and development which enhance worker motivation and inspiration.
Achievement cultural Pattern
Considers the organisational performance and what is required to achieve the greatest possible performance. It includes discovery, innovation, and competition, being the best, and striving for excellence. Consistent cultural Pattern
This looks at consistency and the discipline which is required to achieve this. This can be created by creating an organisational culture of order, rules, standardization, planning, follow-through, and measurement. Each of these 4 leadership types can be related to the MBTI, for example Cooperation relates to the
MBTI – Sensing/Feeling, Inspiration leads to MBTI – Intuition/Feeling, Consistent relates to MBTI
Sensing/Thinking and the final leg of L4 – Achievement, relates to MBTI Intuition/Thinking. One thing that Truskie does identity is that there is no ideal MBTI Profile, that it will vary depending on the situation and people.
5.2.6
Transactional and Transformational Leadership
Transformational Leadership was initially documented by James MacGregor Burns which proposed that transformational leadership “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”, thus the leader needs to bring the follower, or the team, with them to achieve higher motivation, and that it is a two-way process where the followers can become leaders. Burns’ notion of this leadership style was that the leader recognizes their team and drives them to place so they all drive towards the common end goal via joint values and principles.
Bernard Bass later developed Burns’ concept and proposed that transformational leadership is actually a one way process where it is the leader alone who transforms the followers, or the team.
Bass identified that a transformational leader may:
•
“Expand a follower’s portfolio of needs”
•
“Transform a follower’s self-interest”
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•
“Increase the confidence of followers”
•
“Elevate followers’ expectations”
•
“Heighten the value of the leader’s intended outcomes for the follower”
•
“Encourage behavioral change”
•
“Motivate others to higher levels of personal achievement (Maslow’s ‘self-actualization’)”.
This you can see is aligned to a one way stream. Bass did identify that “Transformational leadership is closer to the prototype of leadership that people have in mind when they describe their ideal leader, and it is more likely to provide a role model with which subordinates want to identify”.
A transactional leadership style follows the more traditional model of leadership looking at the organizational level and the organization/project needs, whereas the Transformational style focuses more at lower level needs of the individuals. It could be said that a transactional leader is looking for such a transaction, whereby they exchange one thing for another.
Transactional leadership is a “‘give and take’ working relationship – rapport between leader and follower is established through exchange, such as a rewards system for meeting particular objectives”
(Lai 2011).
Bass summarizes this Transactional leadership style a ‘leader gets things done by making promises of recognition, pay increases, and advancement for employees who perform well’. By contrast, employees who do not do good performance are penalized. Bass states – ‘this promise and reward for good performance, or threat and discipline for poor performance – characterizes effective leadership’. Bass goes on to state that ‘organizations whose leaders are transactional are less effective than those whose leaders are transformational’ (p22)
Transactional leaders are looking at shorter term goals, will operate within current systems and processes and will look to meet the bottom line to achieve short-term profits. These types of leaders tend to be very preoccupied with power and the organizational politics.
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Table 1 below defines elements between Transactional and Transformational leadership styles can be seen below:
TRANSFORMAITONAL elements
TRANSACTIONAL elements
Idealized influence – leader as a role model to Contingent Reward – effective transaction their followers, importance of trust within the and exchange between leader and followers team Inspirational Motivation – leader demonstrate Management-by-Exception – leader actions enthusiasm and is optimistic, commitment to a to prevent or resolve problems shared goal, looks to the future, is confident
Intellectual Stimulation – creativity, encourages Laissez-Faire
Leadership
– more individuals to look at things in new ways, will distant/avoidant leadership approach offer difference perspectives
Individual consideration – develop their followers, take on the role of a mentor/coach, will teach and recognise individuals have different needs.
Idealised Attributes - instils pride in people, builds trust, displays a sense of power and personal sacrifice.
Both kinds of leadership are necessary. The transactional leader is more traditional focusing on the organization and the needs to deliver, whereas the transformational leader is more open to the need for change and will react to the needs, vision, culture or challenges; they will look to work with the individuals to ‘transform’ them. Earlier within section 5.1 we saw how Partington and Rost have both identified that management is more of a transactional approach whereas leadership is more transformational. A transformational leader is more engaged with the individual and their needs, it helps them understand and make the most of their own personal interest but also those of the team and the wider organization. A leader who demonstrates this trait provides an individual with a sense of purpose and builds on the skills and abilities already available. These leaders help the individuals to develop their own skills and performance, by creating motivation, positive attitudes and values. They encourage people to aim higher, creates a sense of achievement thus helping to motivate and elevate the individuals/teams performance. A transformational leader has a high moral and ethical
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standard. These leaders create a high performing environment which leads to organizational success with a skilled, motivated team. Research shows that this type of leadership can be very effective, and often more effective than the transactional style. Bass argues that for firms to remain successful particularly those with a short product lifecycle a transactional leadership style needs to be adopted at all levels throughout the company. That only the transformational leader has the flexibility that is required (Pg 30-31).
Hooper and Potter (1997) expanded upon the key performance traits of a transformational leader and outlined the following 7 points:
1) Setting direction
2) Setting an example
3) Communication
4) Alignment
5) Bringing out the best in people
6) The leader as a change agent
7) Providing decision in a crisis and on the ambiguous
As a leader in the majority of project, teams or organisaitons these are all traits which will certainly help a team perform, ensuring the best can be made from the team available. A good project manager will want to use their resources at hand, the best of which is their team, thus bringing out the best in the team for group cohesion, making decisions and providing direction can lead to a successful project outcome.
Some of the research that has been conducted has indicated that female leaders will typically score higher than the male leaders in Transformational Leadership styles.
Muller and Turner (2006) recognize this transformational style as one of 4 key leadership areas, in their study they look to relate the various leadership styles to project management. In doing so they have recognized that there is limited literature linking the leadership style to project success.
5.2.7
Passive Avoidant
Bass and Avolio (2004) continued to refine the definition and characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership. Originally, both passive and active management by exception were placed as subscales of transactional leadership because they both focused on the exceptions of either passive management or active management. As they researched further, it became obvious to Bass and Avolio that there was a significant difference between management by exception (active) and
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management by exception (passive). Management by exception (active) is when a leader systematically approaches leadership in a proactive manner. Management by exception (passive) is where the leader is passive and doesn’t deal with problems, and often fails to address the problem even when it becomes chronic.
Bass and Avolio (2004) revised the construct of passive avoidant leadership by appointing management by exception (passive) as one of its subscales, when they found that the behavior of a leader exhibiting management by exception (passive) traits showed similar behavior to the leader with laissez faire traits. The passive avoidant leader has tendencies to avoid involvement in important issues and is most often not engaged with his or her followers. Bass and Avolio further explained that the passive avoidant style of leadership “has a negative effect on desired outcomes - opposite to what is intended by the leader-manager. In this regard it is similar to laissez faire styles or ‘no leadership’ both types of behavior have negative impacts on followers and associates”
As a result, Bass and Avolio (2004) reconstructed the passive avoidant leadership to include management by exception (passive) and laissez-faire as subscales. Consequently, by developing a higher-level construct of passive avoidant leadership, Bass and Avolio’s leadership styles now include transformational, transactional, and passive avoidant.
The two components of passive avoidant leadership include: (a) management by exception (passive), and (b) laissez faire.
Management by exception (passive): Passive management by exception occurs when a leader waits until the task or work is completed before assessing if a problem has occurred. Only at the end of a task and when a problem has been identified, or deviation from standards has taken place does the leader take corrective action. Standards are not made clear until after the mistake is made. Negative impact on follower job satisfaction and efficacy has been associated with the passive form of management by exception (Byer & Gray, 2006).
Laissez faire leadership: Transformational and transactional leaders are highly active in the way they lead (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio 1994, 1995, 2000), yet laissez faire leadership is the absence of leadership and the act of avoiding intervention when needed (Bass & Avolio, 1995; Stewart, 2006).
The laissez faire leader in essence offers no leadership to subordinates nor fulfills the expectations of his or her superiors. Studies such as the one conducted by Judge and Piccolo (2004), have shown the negative effects that laissez faire leadership style has on subordinate job satisfaction. In earlier studies, such as the one conducted by Lewin, Lippitt, and White (1939), found that the laissez faire leadership style had a negative impact on follower job satisfaction, as well as a negative influence on productivity rates. In essence, a person with a laissez faire leadership style is not really leading. The laissez faire leader avoids issues involving conflict or that require intervention (Kurland et al., 2010).
Because of the absence of leadership found in the passive avoidant leadership style, Bass and Avolio
(2004) indicated that the leader would have a negative impact on the performance of his or her followers. Passive avoidant leaders possess an ineffective style of leadership that passively
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disengages from their followers unless the situation becomes critical (Bass & Avolio, 2004). The passive avoidant leader will avoid engaging in important issues, is absent when needed, avoids decision-making, and will put off decisions on important inquiries.
Transformational or transactional leadership traits are not found in the passive avoidant leader (Bass
& Avolio, 2004).
As we have seen, there many theories behind leadership styles, only a few of which have been captured here.
Daniel Goleman (2000) quotes that ‘new research suggests that the most effective executives use a collection of distinct leadership styles – each in the right measure, at just the right time. Such flexibility is tough to put into action, but it pays off in performance. And better yet, it can be learned.’
Some of those will be explored within this study to understand their impact, if any, to project success, transactional and transformational leadership styles will be captured as part of the survey.
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5.3
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Project Success
Of course being a good leader and knowing what leadership style to adopt will not result in project success alone. Knowing what leadership styles impact on a project’s success is key, and knowing when such a style should be adopted is critical. As such, it is important to define what is meant by the term project success.
Classic textbooks define that a project is a success if it delivers on all agreed objectives, including scope, schedule, budget, quality, goals or strategic positions to be attained. However, during the project life cycle, the schedule, budget and specification appear to be the driving force to determining success, this may be due to the visible nature of these elements. When the project is complete and the end product has been used, success perspectives can drastically change and the net value of the product can effect retrospective judgements.
These changing perspectives mean that a project’s relative degree of success or failure may change over time. The Sydney Opera house is an example of this. The original 1957 project plan scheduled completion in 5 years for a cost of $7. The project actually took 13 years with a cost of $110M. In no doubt it was a severely problematic project with its constant missed deadlines and its financial overruns being reported extensively by the press to the Australian public. Retrospectively we now acknowledge that the project created an Australian icon and tourist attraction that has drawn many tourists and economic gain to Sydney which has exceeded the project costs many times.
One of the reasons people may have in finding it difficult to agree on project success definition is because there are two interconnected aspects in which project success or failure is determined.
Project success tends to describe success in relation to the project’s aims and objectives. Did the product meet expectations? Did the product add the expected value? Was it produced at the expected cost? Was the quality to the correct specifications? Was the final product delivered on time? Project success measurement may often take a long period of time. Expectations may not be realised for a number of years and this can present an issue for the project management team. The team will probably not be involved after the project implementation phase and as such may not see if the expectations are satisfied. It can be argued that it would be unfair to hold the project team accountable for project success.
Project Management success is comparatively simple to measure. An activity has to occur in a certain time, at a certain cost and to meet specific deliverables. Cost, time, quality and safety are usually the key measures for project management success. Recognizing that some elements of this definition of success may not be within the project management team’s influence, it is usually a simple process to determine success measures that can be attribute to the execution of a project.
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At times, project success and project management success can be in direct opposition. In the case of the Sydney Opera House, the end product is a huge project success yet the delivery of the project was 8 years late and massively over budget resulting in a project management failure.
Muller and Turner (2007) in their study of Project Success have identified that difference cultures will rate success differently, as will Project Managers in projects of varying complexity. A higher complexity project will rate customer satisfaction as determining the project success whereas a low complexity project will rate team satisfaction as the measure to determine project success. Muller and Turner (2006) have also identified that ‘a project managers’ success at managing his or her project is dependent on their competence, particularly their leadership style comprising emotional intelligence, management focus and intellect.’
Muller and Turner (2005) have however identified that the project success research to date does appear to exclude the Project Manager and their leadership style as a key success factor, and that despite there being numerous lists of the key success factors, that the Project Manager is not specifically mentioned. ‘Rarely does the literature on project success factors specifically or overtly mention the project manager and his or her leadership style and competence.’ (Muller and Turner
2005)
So how does a Project Manager know what leadership style they should adopt in order to successfully execute their project?
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5.4
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Project Managers Leadership Style
As we have seen there are many and varied leadership styles available to a Project Manager, yet how does a PM know which one to select, and should they adopt the same leadership style regardless of their team and project, or should it be tailored to suit the unique project. Hodgkinson states that ‘the program and project manager must determine the most appropriate leadership style for each project team’ and that they ‘should choose the correct leadership style based upon the Project and Project
Team requirements’. Within his study of this subject he has identified the numerous leadership styles, some of which we have already explored, but he goes on to identify several situations and factors where a PM needs to consider the leadership style as appropriate:
Maturity of the project team – a new team will still be forming and require guidance, an establish team is likely to need a more hands off PM approach
Maturity levels of the individuals – new hires will require more oversight than people who have been there for longer
Organizational culture – and the way of operating
Urgency of the situation – varying degrees of project urgency will often dictate various leadership styles.
Co-located team vs a virtual team who are likely to require a more direct leadership
The study conducted by Davis A, also acknowledges the need for the organization culture, the way of operating and previous history/experience as something the Project Manager must understand. In the leadership styles he reviewed he identified that the transformational style is the one most demonstrated by Project Managers. This is echoed in the article by InterGlobe Consulting who also recognize transformational leadership one of the most effective styles when managing projects and people. This work leans towards the earlier methods of situational leadership style, for the project manager to understand their team, and to then apply the appropriate style, for the project manager to understand their team, and to then apply the appropriate style, needing Emotional Intelligence to select the appropriate method.
Crawford et al, have shown that different project management approaches are appropriate for different projects, as are different leaderships styles to project success.
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Organisational Leadership and Development Programs
5.5
With the rapid pace of change in today’s business world, organisations face an increasing range of challenges that require their leader to develop skills to meet these challenges.
Leadership and leader development is a business activity that is now seen as key to the future by improving the bottom line performance of many organisations who invest in its development as they consider it a source of competitive advantage (Day, 2000).
Previously the measure of an organisation’s success was its property, not its people, however that view has changed and now organisations acknowledge that their wealth is in their employees realizing that should their employees become dis-satisfied and leave the organisation then this could have economic implications for the business, especially if employees leave for a competitor (Day,
2000).
Studies reported by the Centre for Creative Leadership (http://www.ccl.org/Leadership/index.aspx) show that investment in leadership:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Improves the bottom-line financial performance
Attracts and retains talent
Drives a performance culture
Increases organizational agility
There is a belief that leadership can be learnt; “leaders are made as much as they are born” (Craven and Torrance, 2004), “are leaders born or can they be taught?” (Turner, 2003). Much has been written about General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch transformation of the company and it’s approach to leadership training – GE spends around $1bn annually to train, educate and develop future leaders centred around Crotonville, GE’s global leadership institute. Leadership development is a strategic priority as the company strives to maintain it’s position as the preeminent company for leadership development (retrieved May 2014 from http://www.ge.com.careers/culture/university-students).
There are a wide range of companies who offer both management and leadership development to their existing and prospective employees. Vault (2008) provides an extensive guide to such programs run by some of the world’s leading organisations who place significant emphasis on their employees and invest in their leadership potential. Such programs are designed to “nurture leadership from entry-level to mid- and executive-level” with the belief that companies that companies that “invest in their emerging leaders reap the rewards of greater competitive advantage, now and in the future”
(Vault, 2008).
Yukl (2002) identifies three different forms of leadership development through formal training, developmental activities and self-help activities with the emphasis on learning from experience,
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coaching and mentoring and private study. Leadership development doesn’t necessarily remove the employee from the workplace for extended periods of time, although there may be short sessions of workshops and seminars conducted in classroom-type environments. It should be a continuous process that can take place anywhere with the emphasis on learning from work in real-time. This is supported by Lamoureux (2011) who states that from Fortune’s top 25 companies for leaders, most use the ‘70-20-10 model’ for developing their leaders. This ensures:
70% learning happens on the job and is experimental
20% through mentoring and feedback
10% through formal training
From a review of programs in Vault’s Guide (2008), it appears that a 2 year program is typically offered by the organisations who excel in leadership development.
Day (2000) summarises in Table 1 the most common practices covered in programs of leadership development. The effectiveness of leadership development programs is dependent on factors that include the culture of the company to facilitate or inhibit the learning process and support from senior management (Yukl, 2002) and it is important to distinguish the difference between leader development and leadership development. In leader development, the emphasis is on individualbased knowledge, skills and abilities associated with formal leadership roles whilst developing intrapersonal competencies. However leadership development is focused on developing social skills, building relationships with the ability to network and co-operate with others within the organisation and beyond (Day, 2000).
The differences between leader and leadership development summarized by Day is shown in Table 2.
The development targets for both are the same as those set out initially by Mayer and Salovey, then
Goleman in the framework for Emotional Intelligence.
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Table 2. Summary of Selected Practices in Leadership Development
Practice
Description
Development Target
Human
Capital
Social
Capital
Strengths
Weaknesses
Overwhelming amount of data; no guidance on how to change; time and effort (C, S)
360-degree feedback Multi-source ratings of performance, organised and presented to an individual
Self knowledge,
Behavioural change
✓
X
Comprehensive picture: broad participation (A)
Coaching
Practical, goal focused form of one-on-one learning
Self knowledge,
Behavioural change,
Career development
✓
?
Personalised; intensive (C, S)
Advising/developmental relationship, usually with a more senior manager
Broader understanding,
Advancement catalyst,
Lessons learnt/avoid mistakes ✓
Networks
Connecting to others in different functions and areas
Better problem-solving,
Learning who to consult for project help,
Socialization
?
✓
Builds organisation (S)
Ad hoc; unstructured (A)
Job Assignments
Providing 'stretch ' assignments in terms of role, function or geography Skills development,
Broader understanding of the business
✓
?
Job relevant; accelerates learning (C)
Conflict between performance and development; no structure for learning (A, S)
Action Learning
Project-based learning directed at important business problems
Socialization, Teamwork
Implementation strategy
✓
✓
Tied to business imperatives; action-oriented
(C,S)
Time intensive; leadership lessons not always clear; overemphasis on results (A)
Mentoring
?
Perceived stigma (remedial); expensive Strong personal bond (S)
Peer jealousy; over dependence; (A, C)
Note: ✓= intended development target; x = not an intended development target; ? = possible development target
A = assessment; C = challenge; S = support
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Leadership Development: A Review in Context (David V. Day, Pennsylvania State University)
Leadership Quarterly, 99(4), 581-613, ISSN: 1048-9843
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Table 3. Summary of Differences between Leader Development and Leadership Development
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Development Target
Comparison Dimension
Leader
Leadership
Capital Type
Human
Social
Leadership Model
Individual
Personal Power
Knowledge
Trustworthiness
Relational
Commitments
Mutual Respect
Trust
Competence Base
Intrapersonal
Interpersonal
Skills
Self-awareness
Emotional awareness
Self confidence
Accurate self image
Self-regulation
Self-control
Trustworthiness
Personal responsibility
Adaptability
Self-motivation
Initiative
Commitment
Optimism
Social Awareness
Empathy
Service orientation
Political awareness
Social skills
Building bonds
Team orientation
Change catalyst
Conflict management
Leadership Development: A Review in Context (David V. Day, Pennsylvania State University)
Leadership Quarterly, 99(4), 581-613, ISSN: 1048-9843
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This section has concentrated so far on the literature on leading US/global organisations who devote millions of dollars on leadership development. At the other end of the scale, a subcontractor company operating in the engineering construction sector of industry has developed it’s own in-house leadership development program.
The views were sought of ALE’s Chris Hines, Global Recruitment, Learning and Development
Manager for the heavy-lift service provider on the ALE in-house Leadership Development
Program (LDP) to determine the aims and background to the program, which was implemented during 2013 with a pilot course run in the Middle East branch.
Hines states “the business is thriving and growing, with an existing platform of quality people and equipment. There has been a realization at board level that the level of investment in equipment has not been echoed in people investment and this is likely to have an impact on the business, possibly inhibiting growth. Leadership Development sits at the front of a Learning and
Development agenda designed to address this gap” (Hines, C., 2014, pers. comm., 27 April).
According to Hines, the specialized nature of the business means that it takes anywhere up to 5 years to optimize the potential of employees. The effect of this is that there is a risk of succession leadership candidates not being available as new locations are opened and begin to grow. In addition, leadership plays an instrumental role in nurturing and retaining talent. The rate of growth of the business currently is bringing this potential gap into sharper focus.
It is intended that measures will be implemented to gauge the effectiveness of the LDP however it is thought that the benefits will be seen in the medium to long term, as the LDP was introduced in one region in 2013 it is considered too early to see this. Measures suggested include engagement survey scores, employee turnover rates and numbers of employees progressing into key roles within their current business unit. As such, there is no data available yet to use for comparison purposes to judge the program’s effectiveness.
Candidates for the LDP are indentified by their branch managers as potential leaders and nominated for entry onto the program. Hines considers that the business is still currently tight knit enough for this to be successful. There are plans for implementing a more systematic process for candidate selection with the launch of a new Human Resource Management
Information system in the next 12 to 24 months.
The LDP is based on a range of materials available commercially and familiar to Hines who has experience in delivering such training, translating the materials into pragmatic outcomes which people can take and use in their jobs. Hines believes most leadership material is in some way, shape or form a variation of something else; the ALE LDP is a people - behavioural centered
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program - the objective of which is to help leaders become more self-aware / aware of others, have a better understanding of what they value and what they can authentically use to positively influence others, improving their communication skills, working out how best to use their time to achieve their goals for the benefit of themselves, their teams and the business.
This aligns perfectly with Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence theory. Hines believes it is not a
‘one size fits all process’ - it should be almost unique for each participant and having delivered some of the content previously, Hines has structured the LDP for ALE specifically and has high hopes for the program.
Within the aerospace industry the Boeing company has its own purposefully created Leadership
Centre, a focal point for training and for leaders across the globe to come together for standardized training programs as the company strongly believes ‘as our leaders grow, our company grows’.
These programs take employees into management roles, train from management to leadership and at an executive level has leaders teaching leaders, a way of current leaders helping to train and lead, through teaching their personal experiences to tomorrow’s leaders.
These courses are open to Project Managers, and there is a specific project management course where PMs from across the globe come together to learn the project management techniques and leadership techniques to bring these together.
By having one focalized location, people cannot be distracted by their ‘day job’ and it brings together a forum of networking for people to link and help each other when they return to their respective sites and programs.
Boeing is very focused on developing their talent, ‘in fact, nearly 95 percent of today 's senior leaders were promoted from within our workforce. Developing our leadership pipeline is as important to our senior leadership team as is delivering quality products and services to our customers’ (Boeing Leadership Centre)
However not all agree that these leadership development programs are a success, Bass argues that despite the ‘many successes’ seen with these programs that ‘many executives still feel leadership is like the whether’. That you can discuss it but little can actually be done about it.
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6.
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Leadership Survey Strategy
As part of the Group Project Module the group had to develop a question around leadership
“How does leadership style impact on project success” to answer this question the group conducted an Literature review, developed a questionnaire based on the Multifunctional
Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). An analysis of the review and questionnaire then took place to determine what appeared in the research.
A literature review was carried out (see section 5.2) which identified that there are numerous
Leadership styles and theories, we focused on a number of key Leadership Styles as outlined below
Myers Briggs Type Indicator Theory (MBTI)
Emotional Intelligence
Situational Leadership
Hay McBer – Coercive, authoritative, affiliatative, democratic, pace setting, coaching
Burns Transformational vs Transactional
L4 Model
Each style and theory is different from others, but all have a lot of review and research material on them. But how does this link to Project Management and more importantly Project
Success. Muller and Turner have identified in their research that the Project Manager does not tend to be linked to the Project Success
Hodgkinson identified that a Project Manager needs to identify an appropriate leadership style for the project they are managing, but also a style which is appropriate for the team they are working with, varying factors in the project and with the team maturity and experience can drive requirements for different styles. However Davis noted that organisational culture could also play a factor, and therefore within our 4 industries which could lead to different cultures, do they have an influence on the project leadership style?
Crawford et al identified how leadership styles require a varying approach to project success and went on highlight the Transformational and Transactional styles.
We saw that a Transformational leadership style take actions to motivate their team, work for the good of their teams/organisation, they try to develop their team and have high ethical
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standards, they are very focused on their team/followers to encourage performance and to be seen as a role model.
A transactional leader is more organisational focused rather than employee, they are focused on the roles, issues, structure, policies and what is needed to deliver results.
These findings of the Literature review demonstrate there is a strong belief that leadership styles (Hay/Mcber 6 Leadership Styles and Burns Transformational and Transactional Styles) do impact project success and the best leaders also adapt their style to situation types.
With this linkage we wanted to further explore the Transactional and Transformational leadership styles and how people within our organisations view a relationship, if at all, between the leadership styles and project success.
To test this theory within our own organizations and to help validate our research, it was decided that a survey would be an appropriate method of collecting data. To ensure the effectiveness of the survey, the following objectives were taken into account during the survey design:
The survey should identify if Transformational and Transactional Leadership style traits are demonstrated by leaders within their organizations and gauge how effective the respondent feels their leader is.
It should determine if the respondents believe that Leadership Style impacts Project
Success.
The rating scales used must be clearly defined and appropriate.
We must be able to collect, collate and interpret the results ourselves
Where possible, if a well know survey has been developed to address our primary considerations, it should be considered for use, if agreed by the team and the Lecturer.
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Survey Development
After considerable research and attempts to design our own survey, a recommendation from a
HR Manager in the Oil & Gas Industry directed us to a web site called www.mindgarden.com.
Mindgarden.com is an independent publisher of psychological assessments and instruments, used by members of academia, consulting communities, organizations and for research purposes. They offer proven instruments from prominent professionals and feature two major types of instruments: Assessment Measures and Development Measures, including the
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ).
The MLQ has been used extensively in field and laboratory research to study transformational, transactional and passive/avoidant leadership styles and it assesses a full range of leadership behaviours and provides an assessment of the leaders’ effectiveness, as perceived by the respondent. There are two surveys: the Self Rating Form, where supervisors rate themselves as leaders, and the Rater Form, where associates rate their leaders. Both surveys were assessed to determine relevance to the dissertation question and it was agreed that the second survey, the Rater Form could be used as a tool for this dissertation.
A License to use, which allows researchers to use a Mind Garden instrument without support from Mind Garden in administering the instrument, was purchased for the MLQ.
With the MLQ agreed as the survey to use to identify Transformational and Transactional
Leadership Styles within our organizations, we needed a survey to collate respondents opinions to help answer our dissertation question; ‘Does Leadership Style influence Project Success?’
As no pre-existing survey could be found, a bespoke survey was created. This was achieved by constructing 20 supporting and contradictory statements regarding project success and leadership styles and asking respondents to reply if they believed the statement to be true or false. This need to construct a bespoke survey helps demonstrate the uniqueness our dissertation question is attempting to answer and supports Muller and Turner’s (1996) recognition that there is limited literature linking leadership style to project success.
To rate the surveys, a ‘Likert-type’ scale was applied to the questions, enabling us to tally up individual, organizational and overall survey responses. The MLQ asked respondents to judge how frequently each statement ‘fits’ a Leader they were describing. The respondents were asked to rate a Leader in accordance to the following classifications: Not at all, Once in a While,
Sometimes, Fairly Often, Frequently if not Always. The rating of the Project Success Survey was achieved by asking respondents to indicate if they believed the statements to be true, false or undecided. 42
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By applying numerical values to the appropriate responses, we can model and compare the results using graphical and statistical methods.
A copy of the survey can be found within Appendix 1.
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6.2
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Survey Demographics
The team participating in this survey comes from a cross section of organizations within the private sector within different industries and as such we decided to distribute all three surveys to respondents within our own organizations. This variety of responses enabled us to conduct a cross-organizational comparison, as well as an overall picture on Leadership Style and its impact on Project Success and contributed substantially to our discussion and conclusions.
The industries represented within this group are:
Aerospace
Construction
IT
Oil & Gas EPC
Oil and Gas Upstream
Each of these has an engineering/technical aspect and is a private sector organisation therefore a common basis for comparison.
For the purpose of this dissertation, personal respondent details such as age, length of service, position, etc was not collected. This decision was intentional as we wanted to focus our surveys on the respondent’s beliefs on Leadership Style and its impact on Project Success, regardless of the age, experience, length of service, sex, etc, of the respondent.
6.2.1 Aerospace industry
The global aerospace and defence sector is valued at $920 billion (2009) which is predicted to be valued at $1190 billion by the end of 2014, of which the UK aerospace industry is an estimated value of $20 billion per year employing circa 250,000 people.
The largest share of the market goes to the USA at 59%, with 22% within Europe and 19% in
Asia-Pacific. Boeing holds the largest share of the market standing at 7.4% (figures taken from
Clearwater 2010).
The sample data use for this research is against leaders from mid level up to Managing Director and Project Managers within the leading organisation, from personnel working in the UK and the US, to try and take a broader range of responses, particularly bringing in the different cultural aspects.
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Freedman R has also conducted a study on leadership styles within the aerospace industry using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), as we have done ourselves. He noted that there was ‘evidence of transactional leadership approaches can be found in performance appraisal systems specifying criteria for acceptable or outstanding performance’ as seen within this particular aerospace company, he went on to recognise that ‘followers might expect pay increases, promotions, or other forms of recognition’.
Within the company sampled there is a high importance played on performance appraisals of individuals on an annual basis with an interim mid year review, this will then influence financial rewards and promotions, therefore you would expect to see a high transactional leadership trait demonstrated in the survey results.
6.2.2 Construction
Within the engineering construction industry, the sector that supplies specialised engineering solutions to for the transportation, erection and installation of heavy equipment was chosen for the purposes of the MLQ survey.
From within this sector, one service provider was chosen, ALE. Founded in the UK in 1982, ALE now has a global network of operating centres and a large fleet of heavy cranes, specialist transport and installation equipment providing a complete service from initial concept through to completed project across the world.
Renowned for exceptional project management and engineering intelligence, the business has grown to it’s leading worldwide market position with over 1,400 employees and a reported turnover for 2013 of €250 million. The head office remains in the UK and with operating bases located in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and the Far
East, the company is strategically positioned in major centres of industrial activity.
The company claims to “invest as much in our people as in equipment, with a world-class management structure to support our technical potential. So as well as having the best project managers and engineers available today, we’ll have the best tomorrow”, whilst employing
“dedicated professionals who work with our clients to achieve the very best results. We employ imaginative people at all levels within the company, who focus on developing innovative solutions for the most complex projects. We challenge conventional thinking, aspire beyond accepted limitations, and don’t stop until we have the smartest, most effective solution to each and every challenge.” (retrieved April 2014 from http://www.ale-heavylift.com).
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From late 2013, the company has embarked upon a leadership development programme, initially in the Middle East region and currently within the UK branch, to develop managers who are working in leadership roles. This is identifying with the statement above by investing in employees and promoting a transformational environment where innovation is encouraged at all levels.
Against this backdrop, the MLQ was distributed across the global business from Director level through the management team to Project Engineers.
The range of the population who were invited to participate in the MLQ covered a peer group from various branches and regions within the global organization, from South America, Europe,
Africa, Middle East, Far East and Australia.
32 questionnaires in total were distributed and with a 50% return rate, 16 surveys were completed and returned.
75% of the surveys returned were received from respondents from within the UK business, one from Europe, one from the Far East and one from the Middle East.
6.2.3 IT
The questionnaire was distributed in Information Technology industry among employees in lead roles in Software Development and Quality Assurance areas. Only 9 participants have responded with a completed survey.
6.2.4 Oil & Gas EPC
The Company surveyed is a leading FTSE Company with 6.3bn Dollar (US) revenue that provides integrated services across the Oil and Gas asset life cycle in 29 countries. Working across the international oil and gas industry, they help customers unlock the full value of their energy assets. The Company surveyed aims to attract, develop and retain the very best talent in the industry. And, guided by a clear set of values, they nurture a distinctive, delivery-focused culture. The Company has only recently established a Leadership development programme, and is viewed as a significant move forward which will help develop the business. Due to the nature of the Company (Engineering, procurement & construction) there is a high turnover of contracting staff, this leads the Company to lead towards a more transactional style of leadership
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“Transactional leadership is a “‘give and take’ working relationship – rapport between leader and follower is established through exchange, such as a rewards system for meeting particular objectives” (Lai 2011).
The recently established leadership program of the Company aims to develop the overall leadership style more towards the Transformational Leadership Style “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”,
The business unit survey is based in the UK within the Oil and Gas Industry involved in the engineering, procurement and construction of onshore and offshore client assets. A number of leaders from Project Managers, Site Managers, Construction Managers and Discipline Leads and were requested to populate the MLQ survey. With 46 issued and a return of 20 Questionnaires.
6.2.5 Oil and Gas Upstream
The company surveyed is a major player in The Upstream Oil & Gas Industry and focuses on exploring for new global oil and gas reserves and developing major projects where technology and know-how add value to the resource holders.
In the UK sector of the North Sea, they produce more than 12% of UK oil and gas, have interest in more than 50 fields, and operate more than 30 offshore installations, 30 subsea installation,
2 Floating Production Storage Offtake vessels (FPSO’s), 3 onshore gas plants and a marine terminal for the distribution of Natural Gas Liquids globally.
The organization states that its approach to Leadership Development is central to becoming the most competitive and innovative energy company and underpins this with its Leadership
Attributes, which define the behaviors expected of leaders. All employees moving into a
Leadership role for the first time within the organization are required to participate in a variety of mandatory Leadership Development Programs, requiring up to 2 years to complete.
Leadership development is given significant importance by the organization and by individuals within it; however, promotion, wages and bonuses are all directly linked to the annual performance review. This appears to provide conflicting messages to leaders by encouraging them to develop Transformational Leadership Styles for managing their team members, but rewarding those using Transactional methodologies. Analysis of the survey results will determine if these conflicting messages are visible within the leadership team.
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6.3
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Survey Analysis
For the purpose of this dissertation, all responses were considered valid and we have not censored any results as a consequence of scoring or ranking.
We are aware that there may be bias of either negative or positive results throughout, depending on the personal feelings and attitudes of the respondent at that point in time.
Within the surveys which were distributed to 5 different private sector organizations: Oil & Gas
Upstream, a total of 14 surveys returned; Construction, 18 surveys returned; IT, 8 surveys returned; Oil & Gas EPC, 20 surveys returned and Aerospace, 16 surveys returned. A total of 76 surveys have been returned, providing an overall response rate