Do Different Project Categories Need Different Leadership Styles?

Transcription

1 Do Different Project Categories Need Different Leadership Styles? Siamak Haji Yakhchali, and Hamed Heydari Farsani Abstract In recent years, there has been a growing research interest in leadership styles and their roles in successful projects. For the last few years, although there have been promising trends to involve leadership in the project environment, few researches have been done, and there are a lot of questions which have remained unanswered. In this research, the main question is that Whether or not a particular category of project requires a particular style of leadership to gain the best outcome? We considered four leadership styles: directive, transactional, transformational, and empowering leadership. Projects were classified based on application area and project typicality. Four criteria were involved in project evaluation: meeting overall objectives, budget performance, schedule performance and stakeholders satisfaction. Data were collected by questionnaire from 106 project management professionals in Iran. Quantitative analysis techniques were employed to identify significant differences in the leadership style of successful managers in different situations. As a result, some particular leadership styles were found well matched to some specific project categories. Keywords leadership styles, project category, project leadership, transformational/transactional. S I. INTRODUCTION INCE the turn of the century, a vast amount of studies have been conducted on leadership. In the present dynamic and competitive environment, Leaders play an important role to help companies prosper. The success of a project extremely depends on project managers [29]. In a literature review, reference [35] found that general management literature has considered the importance of leadership as an essential factor in organization success and has proved that an appropriate leadership style can result in better outcomes; in marked contrast, project management literature on leadership has unexpectedly been ignored competencies and leadership styles of project manager. Thus assigning the right project manager is a key to successful projects [8]. Reference [12] concluded that project success can be achieved when a project manager is properly matched to a project. Despite assertions about considerable importance of project managers leadership in successful projects, few studies have been conducted. Reference [26] investigated the correlation between a project manager s leadership style and Dr. Haji Yakhchali is a faculty of Industrial Engineering department at University of Tehran ( yakhchali@ut.ac.ir). Mr. Heydari Farsani was an MBA student of Industrial Engineering department at University of Tehran ( hamed_hdr@yahoo.com). project type; they noted that the project manager s leadership style can influence the project outcomes. Also, they supported the idea that different project types require different leadership styles. While researchers have tried to fill this gap, selecting a proper project manager in different circumstances still is a serious concern for companies. The significance of the current study is to provide insight into selecting the right project manager in different project categories. We aimed to answer the question that Whether or not a particular project category requires a specific style of leadership to gain the best outcome? The following section will briefly review the relevant literature. The methodology is described next, and it is followed by the analysis section. Finally, results and the conclusion on the aforementioned question are included. II. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES A. Leadership Leadership is defined as one of the most observed and least understood concept on earth by reference [5]. Generally, the term leadership refers to the ability through which someone can influence others to enhance outcomes, so in different situations, different strategies are used to accomplish established goals. Over the past several decades, researchers have used several frameworks and wide variety of theories to understand leaders [33]. There has been a large amount of research done in this field in twentieth century, and it is becoming an essential issue in twenty first century. From over seventy years ago, many studies have been conducted on leadership and six dominant schools have been proposed as a result [26]. Up to the 1940s, the trait school of leadership was the dominant approach. In this school, researchers believed effective leaders are born; they tried to seek common traits among successful leaders [26]. The behavioral school evolved from the 1940s to the 1960s. It was stated that successful leaders show similar behaviors; consequently, they tried to find these behaviors and teach them to future leaders. Most of acknowledged theories of this school defined managers with two dimensions such as concern for people and concern for production (see for instance, reference [3], and reference [17]. In the 1960 s and the 1970 s, the popular approach was contingency school which noted that success of a leader depends on situation, so that in different situations different leaders would be effective (see for instance, reference [14], and reference [19]). In the 1980s visionary school was 124

2 introduced. Reference [1] considered two styles of leadership: transformational and transactional. Transformational leadership, also considered as charismatic style, is corresponded to change in organization and focuses on relationships in the organization. On the other hand, transactional style is defined through rewarding desirable performance according to the contracts and focuses on processes in the organization [40]. In recent decade (2000's) two other schools including emotional intelligence and competency theory have been proposed. Emotional intelligence theory stated that IQ (Intelligence Quotient) does not have the impact on success of leaders as EI (Emotional Intelligence) does; therefore, EI should be considered as an important parameter to choose and educate leaders [16]. Competency theory emphasized that successful leaders should have specific competencies, and different situations need different competencies to be successful [26]. Visionary school has been the most common school in recent years and lots of studies has been done on its basis [33], [11]. Reference [28] suggested a four-style model consisting of directive, transactional, transformational and empowering styles. Using this model brings up some advantages through incorporating collection of (a) directive and transactional, (b) transformational, and (c) empowering leadership as classical, dominant contemporary and newer views of leadership, respectively [33]. Directive style is mostly of early schools and uses instructions, commands and authority to force subordinates to do the desirable task well. Otherwise, empowering style is a modern method which develops leadership abilities among employees. Using this style, leaders encourage subordinates to make decisions on their own in order to gradually delegate responsibilities to them [33]. Reference [28] defined aforementioned types with some sub-factors (Table I). TABLE I LEADERSHIP STYLES AND THEIR SUB-DIMENSIONS [28] Leadership Styles Sub-dimensions Directive Issuing instructions and commands Assigning goals Contingent reprimand Transactional Dispensing contingent material rewards Dispensing contingent personal rewards Transformational Providing a sense of vision Empowering Challenging the status quo Engaging in idealism Providing stimulation and inspiration Encouraging opportunity thinking Encouraging self-rewards Encouraging self-leadership Engaging in participative goal setting Encouraging teamwork B. Leadership in project management Project management is defined as a way to use proper techniques and tools to succeed in projects [31]. In the 1950 s, project management studies focused on network analysis and project planning [21]; while, in the 1960 s, cost control systems was the main goal of studies [9]. Teamwork and breakdown structures were introduced as important factors in the 1970 s [9]. In the 1980 s, a lot of new concepts including project organization, project risk, and project standards were developed. In the 1990 s other factors such as resource management, time management, quality management, and interpersonal relationships evolved in project management literature [9]. Meanwhile, project management evolved from techniques to behaviors and processes [8], [23]. Most of early studies focused on technical aspects of managing projects. Reference [9] pointed that studies on resource management and relationship management started in the early 2000s. Reference [35] posited that the importance of project manager as a success factor was ignored. Instead of focusing solely on project management process, researchers should also concentrate on characteristics and leadership style of project manager [26]. The leadership style of project manager is a key factor to project success [32]. Reference [12] in an exploratory study posited that project leads to success when a project manager is properly matched to the project. Reference [27] claimed that Project managers leadership style has an effect on project success and different leadership styles are suitable for different project types. They recommended that project types should be assorted and project managers leadership styles should be identified, so they can be matched, and managers can be educated and they should develop their leadership skills based on project circumstances. C. Project success Over the years many definitions of project success have been discussed. Reference [2] stated that while many research studies have been conducted about project success, project success is still complicated and multifaceted. The definition of project success depends on people involved in those projects [7]. Reference [37] showed that project success was determined differently in china than in general project management literature; while in literature, emphasis is on time, cost and quality, Chinese project managers emphasize on relationship as the major success criterion in construction industry. Project success differs by industry [20]. Different combinations of success criteria are required for different types of projects [38]. Project success is measured by meeting the overall project objectives and project management success is measured by meeting time, cost, and quality requirements [4]. Also some studies stated that meeting needs of stakeholders and their satisfaction is necessary to project success (see for example, reference [12], and reference [27]). D. Project classification To categorize projects, there are different ways, each of 125

3 which is useful in specific circumstances. Reference [26] suggested six main categories for projects: application area, complexity, life cycle stage, strategic importance, culture and contract type. Later, they omitted life cycle stage and culture [27]. In another study, reference [40] employed eight criteria in classifying projects including: industry sector, project size, owner regulation, initial site, team size, complexity, project typicality, and international involvement. E. Hypotheses H1: There are differences in leadership style of project managers in successful projects of different application areas. H2: There are differences in leadership style of project managers in successful projects of different project typicality. III. SAMPLES AND DATA COLLECTION The population for the research comprised professional project managers in Iran with at least five years experience. 341 experts were invited to participate in the research. 131 properly filled questionnaires were received, and 106 of them were suitable for this study. The biographical data of the 106 respondents were as follow: Almost 86 percent were male and 14 percent female; about 11 percent were 35-years old or younger; 13 percent between 36 and 40; 26 percent between 41 and 45; 28 percent between 46 and 50; 14 percent between 51 and 55; 8 percent older than 55 years. Participants were asked to regard three of their most successful projects. Then, for each project manager, the best performing project was selected according to four criteria: meeting overall objectives, budget performance, schedule performance and stakeholders satisfaction. The best performing project was evaluated by experts whether it was successful or not. Success means different things to different people [15]. As major project managers attention is planned budget and schedule, rather than evaluating an overall project success [12], in the current study, we generally did not concentrate on an academic definition of success [10]. To determine leadership styles, sub-dimensions of directive, transactional, transformational and empowering leadership were examined using scales proposed by reference [28]. Each sub-dimension was defined by three items. For each item, participants were asked to select their behaviors on a 5-point Likert-type scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree [13], [18]. After doing semi-structured interviews with experts, projects were categorized by application area (engineering and construction, organizational change, and IT) and project typicality (advanced and traditional). Project typicality compares the subject project to other company projects due to methods and approaches [40]. under certain measurement conditions, self-evaluation of ability may closely correspond to performance on criterion measures [25] because a highly significant correlation exists between self-rated leadership performance scores and subordinates ratings of project success [39] and LDQ selfrated leadership performance are significantly correlated with the actual performance ratings [41]. We decided that the questionnaires to be filled out by self-rating. Also, to minimize mono-source bias because of self-rated performance, we applied some of suggestions of reference [30]. As an instance, we noted that there is no right and wrong answer and asserted anonymity in the questionnaire. To test the reliability and internal consistency of the responses Cronbach's coefficient (α) was computed as follows: for directive leadership at 0.934, transactional leadership at 0.861, transformational leadership at and empowering at The value of Cronbach's α for transformational leadership is considered acceptable and the values for directive, Transactional and empowering leadership are considered meritorious [6], [24]. Also Cronbach's coefficient (α) values for each sub-dimension were greater than 0.8. IV. ANALYSIS After selecting successful projects based on experts judgment through considering four criteria (meeting overall objectives, budget performance, schedule performance and stakeholders satisfaction), ANOVA was used to assess differences in leadership style by application area. We also used an Independent-Samples T-Test to assess differences in leadership style by project typicality. Table II and Table III respectively showed significant differences in leadership style in successful projects of different application areas and project typicality. The results of ANOVA revealed that there were differences in some sub-dimensions of leadership styles of project managers in different application areas, so the hypothesis H1 is supported. In addition, the results of Independent-Samples T-Test clarified that there are differences in some sub-dimensions of leadership styles in different project typicality; consequently, the hypothesis H2 is supported. TABLE II LEADERSHIP STYLE DIFFERENCES BY APPLICATION AREA ANOVA Leadership Sub-Dimensions Directive - Issuing instructions and commands Directive - Assigning goals Directive - Contingent reprimand Transformational - Challenging the status quo Transformational - Engaging in idealism Empowering - Encouraging opportunity thinking Empowering - Encouraging selfrewards Empowering - Encouraging selfleadership Empowering - Engaging in participative goal setting * Significant: <.05 ** Significant: <.01 Posthoc Scheffe Group Differences EC>IT* EC>IT* EC>IT** Org>EC* IT>Org* * Org>EC* EC: Engineering and Construction Org: Organizational Change IT: Information Technology 126

4 TABLE III LEADERSHIP STYLE DIFFERENCES BY PROJECT TYPICALITY Independent-Samples T-Test Leadership sub-dimensions Directive-Issuing instructions and commands Directive-Assigning goals Transformational-Challenging the status quo Transformational-Providing stimulation and inspiration Empowering-Encouraging opportunity thinking Empowering-Encouraging self-leadership Empowering-Encouraging teamwork * Significant: <.05, df=104 ** Significant: <.01, df=104 T: Traditional A: Advance V. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION Group differences T>A* T>A* * Generally, there is no particular leadership effective in all project situations, but a specific leadership style is more effective than others in a specific situation [34]. Although our finding disclosed project managers choose a combination of different leadership dimensions in different situations, a specific leadership style is more appropriate in a specific project category. In traditional projects, two directive dimensions, assigning goals and issuing instructions and commands, were higher than other leadership dimensions. In contrast, project managers apply empowering and partially transformational dimensions in projects with advanced typicality, which can be described through the fact that concern for process is more important on simple projects, and concern for people is necessary on more-demanding projects [27]. Comparing IT projects with Organizational change and construction and Engineering, it is implied that IT projects needs empowering leaders than other categories. IT employees possess outstanding personality and some specific occupational qualities such as demand for autonomy and achievement orientation [34]. In different project categories, there were no significant differences in transactional dimensions. It means irrespective of project situations, project managers apply a specific level of transactional style. Furthermore, values of transactional dimensions were higher than others. Consequently, project managers generally behave like a transactional leader in every situation. This is in harmony with findings of reference [36] and reference [22]. Reference [36] stated that mechanistic and managerial competencies are more important than emotional and relationship competences for project managers. In addition, reference [22] couldn t show that project manager s leadership style is more transformational than transactional. While reference [27] found no significant differences in competencies of project managers in different project application areas, results of the current research showed that a specific leadership dimension is more appropriate than others in different application areas. This contrast might be resulted from cultural differences between samples of two studies. 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