Leadership Styles

In this study, we have combined research streams with regard to people-oriented dimensions and task-oriented leadership behaviours. We found that transformational leadership of project managers had a positive and significant relationship with innovation and task uniqueness, showing 10% of the variance in performance. The findings are consistent with preceding studies that stated transformational leadership really engenders trust and commitment as told by Podsakoff and other researchers, innovative behaviours among immediate followers (Pieterse et al., 2010) and performance beyond the expected level (Wang, et al., 2011). This is also been found consistent with the results of Kearney and Gebert (2009) who in a study of R&D project teams found that transformational leadership of higher level managers positively influenced on project outcomes. Also, Jing and Avery (2011) found transformational leadership of managers did have a positive impact on employees' commitment and motivation which could in turn influence employee performance in a project environment (Tims, Bakker and Xanthopoulou, 2011).

In the analysis we found a positive change in achieving tasks due to the leader’s attitude. According to the research by adopting Transactional leader behaviours, less variance was found in IT project performance in comparison with Transformational, as high-performance expectation expressed during project reviews could motivate the team members to aim at achieving higher standards of project performance. The results that are discussed above show a strong and highly significant relationship between transformational leadership and innovation (β=0.596, ρb0.001), which supports the Hypothesis 1. From the results the Hypothesis 2 suggested that transactional leadership behaviours has an impact on success depending on the project task. It has a positive relationship with project performance (β=0.358, ρb0.05) thus satisfying the condition. Hypothesis 3 proposed a positive and strong relationship between Transformational & Transactional leadership behaviours of project managers. The results for hypotheses 1 and 2 satisfy the first two conditions. The first model with only the independent variables had project performance as the only significant variable (β = 0.294, ρb0.02). The independent variables explain 6% of the variance in success rate. The addition of the Transformational & Transactional leadership variable which indicates a significant and positive relationship with the completion of projects (β=0.301, ρb0.01). Hypothesis 3 is therefore supported with Transformational & Transactional leadership uniquely explaining the significant impact on the behaviours of project success.

Transactional leadership styles use reward and punishments to gain compliance from their followers. They accept goals, structure, and the culture of the existing organization in projects success and tend to be directive and action-oriented. Transactional leaders are willing to work within existing systems and negotiate to attain the goals of the project organization, which is not good for innovation but suitable for timely completion and meeting the customer requirements. The leader tends to think inside the box when solving problems; transactional leadership is primarily passive. The behaviours most associated with this type of leadership are establishing the criteria for rewarding followers and maintaining the status quo.

Our findings suggest that transformational leadership behaviours in project managers could potentially bypass the hierarchical link between project managers and team members and be experienced directly at the project team level and consequently impact on project performance. Rather the direct impact of transactional leadership on performance and commitment of employees at lower levels of organizations is not supported in research. Our findings suggest that by articulating a clear strategic objective for their division, project managers could inspire delivery teams to put in the “extra effort” required to achieve the desired goals.

The study demonstrates this relationship holds within the project environment as trust in project leaders who exhibit Transformational or Transactional leadership is likely to encourage innovative behaviours among team members in the knowledge that their team managers will stand by them with transformational behaviours in case should they fail in their efforts to implement innovative solutions. By exhibiting transformational behaviours project managers facilitate the generation of ideas among team members and promote the advantages of an innovative idea. Along with using Transactional leadership the teammates remain conscious to complete the desired task on time and budget. This could lead to improved project performance.

Although research has shown that the leadership behaviours of project managers influence project outcomes; there is clear indication of the leadership style which will yield the desired project outcomes. According to our research in Transactional stream of successful project completion, the project managers have clearly defined the vision and encourage the team in following a way for improved performance of the project.

In a transactional leadership project, duration and goal clarity are key factors. This style also shows how significant it is for a project manager to emphasize path-goal clearness, as it appears to be a prospective challenge in a project. In a wider context, leaders must put emphasis on how the project institute complements its parent organizations' goals. In transactional leadership, the group processes are more focused on theories and have practically significant influence in project success. (1) how well the work is organized to utilize personnel and resources; (2) how well inter-related group activities are coordinated; (3) the amount of member agreement about objectives and priorities; (4) mutual trust and cooperation among members; (5) the extent of member identification with the group; (6) member confidence in the capacity of the group to attain its objectives; (7) the procurement and efficient use of resources; and (8) external coordination with other parts of the organization and outsiders. How leaders influence, these group processes is not explained very well by the transformational leadership practices and theories. Organizational processes receive insufficient attention in most theories of transformational leadership. Leadership is viewed as a key determinant of organizational effectiveness, however, the causal impacts of the behaviours or leader on the structural processes, which eventually determine efficiency are rarely described in detail in numerous researches on transformational leadership (Yukl, 1999). Transformational leadership theories would benefit from a more detailed description of leader influence on group and organizational processes. In permanent and project organizations, transformational leadership seems most effective during times of change. This form of leadership can positively affect followers' commitment. Furthermore, by demonstrating commitment and taking ownership of the process, project managers are likely to engender support and commitment among team members to make the project successful. In analysis, personality characteristics of innovation champions found they exhibit transformational leadership to a greater extent than non-champions. It is, therefore, possible that the cascading effect of transformational leadership could influence the innovation-championing behaviours of project managers who in turn influence project performance. The discipline of project management and research on project organizations lies in the identification of the implications of project characteristics for leadership.

The study particularly found that Transformational & Transactional leadership in the organization was linked to the provision of task novelty, an adequate resource, environment uncertainty which enhances the perception of an environment and encouragement of innovation. This is consistent with previous research that has shown that resource availability and support from management help to create a climate for innovation and commitment to organizational process, therefore, in turn induce the culture of mutual trust and co-operation and improved performance (Tims, Bakker and Xanthopoulou, 2011).

We complement Transformational & Transactional leadership theory by the perspective of project organizations which represent an important organizational context factor. In contrast to permanent organizations, some projects are categorized by a small duration as mentioned by Janowicz-Panjaitan and his fellows (2009). This sort of restriction and other accompanying effects suggest that transactional leadership is really effective. On the other hand, by using a mixed strategy projects go with a prospective high task novelty and lack of authority, and project managers seem only able to overcome this issue by means of Transformational & Transactional leadership. In addition, the pressure of internal and external uncertainty that projects face increases the need for transformational leadership.

1.1       Findings

Transactional leaders are leaders who exchange tangible rewards for the work and loyalty of followers. Transformational leaders are leaders who engage with followers, focus on higher order intrinsic needs, and raise consciousness about the significance of specific outcomes and new ways in which those outcomes might be achieved (Hay, 2012). Transactional leaders have a tendency to be extra passive such as transformational leaders determine more active behaviours, which comprise offering a sense of mission. Generally, those reflections have revealed that project features partly increase the requirement for Transformational or Transactional leadership, depends upon which set of features prevail.

This chapter discuses that the transformational leadership of project managers had a positive and significant relationship with innovation and task uniqueness. There are evidences that there is a positive change in achieving tasks due to the leader’s attitude. According to the research by adopting Transactional leader behaviours, less variance was found in IT project performance in comparison with Transformational, as high performance expectation expressed during project reviews could motivate the team members to aim at achieving higher standards of project performance. The results that are discussed which supports all the Hypothesis. This chapter discusses that the transformational leadership behaviours in project managers could potentially bypass the hierarchical link between project managers and team members and be experienced directly at the project team level and consequently impact on project performance. The chapter also discusses that the Transformational & Transactional leadership in the organization was linked to the provision of task novelty, an adequate resource, environment uncertainty which enhances the perception of an environment and encouragement of innovation along with the pressure of internal and external uncertainty that projects face increases the need for transformational leadership.

A few project managers present certain leadership manners in the effort to expand the project performance. But, the rare data about uncertain competitive lead from leadership behaviours outcomes in a manager’s reluctance to adopt different leadership styles. Since the pros of leadership behaviours can be quite intangible, it has prevented or slowed the implementation of leadership theories. The theories of Transformational & Transactional leadership represent valiant attempts by scholars to describe the nature as well as effects of leadership. These theories have their range of pros and cons. There is also little work with quantifiable information on how leadership styles including transactional and transformational affect overall project performance. Additionally, few articles are known about whether transactional or transformational behaviours influences project success.

The results shows a strong and highly significant relationship between transformational leadership and innovation. It is also obvious from the results that the transactional leadership behaviours has an impact on success depending on the project task. It has a positive relationship with project performance (β=0.358, ρb0.05) thus satisfying the condition.

From the results, the addition of the Transformational & Transactional leadership variable which indicates a significant and positive relationship with the completion of projects (β=0.301, ρb0.01). Therefore it is supported that the Transformational & Transactional leadership uniquely explaining the significant impact on the behaviours of project success. Moreover, the level of correlation between transactional leadership and innovation was higher than expected. This could be because transactional leadership has been found to match closely with the determinants of task novelty. This confirms team behaviours and partially mediates the relationship between transactional leadership and project performance.

Thus, a study of the relationships between Transformational & Transactional leadership behaviours and project success is necessary. The purpose of this study was to determine the associations between the leadership style of a project manager transactional, transformational and the impacts on task novelty and environment uncertainty in project performance. The other objective was to determine whether Transformational or Transactional leadership are both effective in the success rate of project. These analyses show that transformational leadership is positively associated with innovation and team communication. This indicates that the project managers who adopt transformational leadership may improve team communication and task novelty. These analyses also indicate a strong correlation between transformational leadership and project performance, suggesting that high levels of transformational leadership should have positive influences on the performance. However, the study found no significant link between transactional leadership and team interaction. The findings suggest that project success can be achieved with the stronger influence of transformational leadership adopted by the project managers.

The mediating roles of individual team interaction dimensions in the relationships between transactional leadership and project performance and between transformational leadership and project performance were examined. The test results suggest that the team communication variable may partially mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and project performance. The analysis also supports a mediating role for team collaboration. The research provides empirical evidence that supports the expectation of gaining significant benefits with the adoption of a particular leadership style. The characteristics of project organizations seem indeed to be influenced by Transformational & Transactional leadership in project success. This paper reports on the findings of empirical research and provides recommendations for improving the project manager’s leadership skills by adopting transactional and transformational style, and project performance.

1.1       Research Implications for Practice:-

Findings from this study will provide insight to project managers in deciding whether to adopt certain leadership style on projects. Our research has several implications for leadership practice. Along with the economic development, organizations and their structures are changing with the passage of time. As a result, leaders in organizations have to face uncertainties. Facing external as well as internal uncertainties, leaders have to anticipate their followers' fears. In general, the range and different constituency of project organizations leave it to the leader to decide which leadership behaviours he or she should display. Our analysis has drawn attention to characteristics such as project duration and goal clarity, which call for the use of transactional leadership. This also shows how significant it is for managers to emphasize path-goal clearness, as it looks to be a possible challenge within projects. Leaders should put emphasis on how an organization could complement the goals of parenting organizations. Moreover, allowing room for discussion and individual decision making seems important in project teams with high task novelty if project duration allows for this. Furthermore, the coherence between the single characteristics with respect to one another must be scrutinized. 

1.2       Limitation and Recommendation for Further Research

In spite of the significant findings of this study, it is not without limitations. One limitation of this study is its cross-sectional design. An objective for future study is to determine how the associations are changing over time. A survey with a longitudinal design may be needed to gain deeper insights into the nature and mediating roles of the relationships. For example, although the findings suggest that transformational leadership has a positive effect on climate for innovation, it is also possible that the nature of the work environment could influence the leadership behaviours of the project managers. A longitudinal research design in the future could help establish the causal relationships among the constructs. The study adopted a quantitative approach, and that has its disadvantages in that it fails to capture the nuances of, and complexities of the relationships studied. Most research on leadership behaviours in project organizations places an emphasis on finding the leadership traits of successful project leaders. We, therefore, propose to further scrutinize the existing leadership approaches with regard to the characteristics of project organizations. Our propositions have major implications for leadership research. Most leadership theories are based on permanent organizations and their respective characteristics. Leadership research has to address the gaps caused by new forms of organizing. In this regard, several researchers have considered Transformational & Transactional leadership in project settings. The findings of the research indicate that the outcomes of transformational leadership in project settings tend to be stronger for employees reporting to project managers than for those reporting to line managers. Overall, empirical investigations focus on individual projects or industries, producing mixed results. Testing the behaviours as hypotheses on varying degrees of project characteristics could reduce the contradictory findings on the effects of Transformational & Transactional leadership in projects. The research combines elements of transformational leadership with transactional leadership behaviours, as results indicate the importance of people-oriented and task-oriented behaviours and provide evidence for different aspects of person-oriented behaviours’ positive influence on teams and task characteristics.

Future qualitative research design should examine in greater detail, the processes through which the effect of Transformational & Transactional leadership practically occurs in the workplace to influence project performance. Whereas our study argues project managers’ leadership styles, transformational and transactional, positively influence project performance, it is also possible the level of processes and innovation contributed significantly to the project performance measures observed. Future research should have a control for the organizational processes, and level of task novelty in order to clarify the degree of project managers' direct impact on project performance. Moreover, the level of correlation between transformational leadership and innovation was higher than expected. This could be because transformational leadership has been found to match closely with the determinants of innovation such as encouragement, recognition and challenge in the workplace. More research should adopt a changed tool to measure transformational leadership and some better descriptive measures for novelty to discover those relationships deeply.

Furthermore, the sample for this study focuses on R&D projects in the IT, Engineering and Aeronautics industry. Consideration should be given to exploring the relationship in other industries. This could also lead to greater insights into the influence between project manager’s leadership behaviours and project success. Additionally, it would be valuable to analyse projects according to unusual data class variables (such as project size and project type) in further investigating the relationship. The possible special effects of team members on leadership style of the project manager also need to be measured in further research. Finally, the impacts of project managers leadership behaviours in specific areas (rather than overall project success) should be a focus in future research.