Role of Leadership in Delegation of Effective Project Management

Table of Content

1.0 INTRODUCTION

2.0 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF LEADERSHIP

3.0 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF LEADERSHIP

4.0 ROLES OF LEADERSHIP

5.0 IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP

6.0 EFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

7.0 CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Leadership is the action of leading teams to achieve goals by influencing employee behaviors in several ways. It plays an imperative role in team performance and productivity. Leaders select vision for organization then he/she inspires and guides employees throughout the work processes. Leaders are individuals who initiate direction for a group of entities and who gain commitment from the group members to ascertain direction and who encourage members to accomplish the goals (Conger, 1992). Leaders are born not made – a recognized discussion. It is also a constant dispute that whether the leadership comes from the individual potentials of leader or leader creates devotees through his/her activities, behaviors or believes (Grint, 2004). But, leader is either a person who has authorities and powers to take decision to implement his/her plan through a process of tasks, individuals, or teams that can influence to achieve goals for organizations.

Leadership and its role is the most apprehension for the project, business, or organization. Project leadership is commonly pondered to be an imperative aspect of project management. Therefore, the main discussion of this report is relating to leadership in project management. The assignment covers some particular areas of leadership. Firstly, the leadership roles examines based on the competencies to address different contextual. The importance of leadership compiles in the next section to manage projects or organizations. Then, the different styles of leadership are presented and analyzed based on literatures. The issues on effective leadership has discussed on succeeding section for effective project management.

2.0 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF LEADERSHIP

Literatures on leadership are very confusing not only cause of notions about leadership has changed over time but also have deviations in definitions of leadership. Leadership is a critical and indispensable constituent for any project management team. Some definitions of different researchers are discussed here for the concept of development on leadership. According to Cohen and March (1974), leadership is the art of persuading others to their supreme performance to achieve the tasks, objectives or targets of project.

Hersey and Blanchard (1984) opinion on leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation. Whereas House (1996) portrays, ‘leadership is the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization’.

Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group to exertion of purpose setting and accomplishment (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001). Then, Bennis (2003) claims ‘it is the capacity to translate vision into reality’. Recent review from Northouse (2004) indicates that it is a process whereby any individual inspires a group of individuals to triumph a common goal.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 1: ‘Golden circles’ of leadership concept (developed from Grint, 2005: 23)

From above assessment, leadership can be addressed as an art, process, or capacity that comprises the talent to guidance people to take actions for achieving a goal or project target. The scope, cost, and time are the three core components of project accomplishment. For the project team to effectively meet the goals, one must realize the impact of positive leadership. According to Grint (2005: 23), it is a concept that can be seen as person (who the leader is), results (what the leader achieves), process (how things get done), or target (why it be done) that illustrated in Figure-1.

3.0 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF LEADERSHIP

A different style of leadership has been offered by some notable theorists based on a wide-ranging of areas on interpersonal and group behavior. Since the first formal studies in the 1930s, the meaning of leadership has changed through five phases – the trait approach, the behavioral approach, the situational approach, the managerial and the transformational approach.

Traits Approach: The approach is an attempt to identify features (mental, physical, or personality) associated with leadership success. It implies leaders are born. It also relies on various traits to certain success criteria (Figure-2).

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure-2: Way of succession of a leader (adapted from Stogdill, 1948: 52)

According to Stogdill (1948: 52), the individualities of a good leader are intelligence, tolerance to uncertainty, administrative capacity, motivation dexterities, interpersonal talents, and initiative eagerness along with foresight.

Behavioral Approach: Researchers began to explore the leadership effectiveness rather searching for traits as organizational effectiveness. Likert (1967) depicts four behavioral styles of leadership are illustrated in Figure-3.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure-3: Different types of leadership (customized by Author)

Explorative leadership does not comprise the subordinate fellows in decision-making. Authoritative leadership bears a master-servant relationship and benevolent to allow in decision-making. Consultative leadership exhibits by some managers who spectacle so much confidence to the subordinates and consult to take decision. Participative leadership is functioning in democratic style to decision-making process and emphasize on goals.

Situational Approach: An approach to leadership advocates the behavior of leaders, the behavior of subordinates, and the situation. According to Hersey and Blanchard (1984), the four distinctive leadership styles are showed in Figure-4. Directing leadership, the leader defines the responsibilities and tells to followers that are needed to do their job. Coaching leadership, the leader provides instructions to followers but supportive. Supporting leadership, the leader and followers share in decisions. Delegating leadership, the leader provides little concern and decision makes by the followers.

[...]