Tag Archives: Methodology

A Study about Power-Based Leadership Approach to Project Management

The concept of leadership relates to power structuring whereby the project leader may lead and motivate through power disposition. Power, in its diverse guises, combines interpersonal and structural elements and can be enhanced through political manoeuvring. Power may also be distributed unevenly between individuals in the project team. In this article a power-based model of project leadership is developed, underpinned by a behaviour-performance-outcome approach and an appropriate methodology is developed for testing the construction enterprises in China using structural equations modelling. The fitness indices show that the resulting model which postulates that the motivational function of good leadership operates through managing power gaps by means of power-sharing and power-amassing is acceptable.

Introduction:~ Project management devotes attention to both the hard and soft systems, namely, the formal system of rules and procedures and the potential informal/human system of motivation and leadership, in order to maximize the probability of achieving a successful project. However, only formal elements of organizational systems can be imposed to which participants may rely upon for recompense should the evolved, informal system fails. Thus, formal contracts are, in part, designed to regulate power disposition of the parties and indicate procedures for the solution of conflict. Since leadership concerns the ability to influence the behaviour of others to closely accord with the desires of the leader, it is inevitable that leadership concerns interpersonal relationships in the pursuit of organizational and individual goals and, therefore, involves power-exercising by the leader. Read more on Power-Based Leadership Approach