LEADERSHIP COMPETENCY PROFILES OF

SUCCESSFUL PROJECT MANAGERS

by Ralf Muller, Rodney Turner

Creative Problem Solving

Group - 4

Team Members:
Karan Kalra
Sheenum Attri
Rajarshi Choudhury
Akanksha Galyan
Table of Content

Implications
Conclusion
Results
Analysis
Methodology

Leadership Theories &

Project Success

Introduction

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Introduction
Managers perform better, stay longer in their position if their personal characteristics meet the
requirements of the position

Profiling provides the idiosyncratic combination of behavioural, temperamental, emotional and

mental attributes of a leader, in order to derive a person’s particular leadership style

Profiles are often used to relate the profile dimensions to success or failure in a person’s leadership
position, or alternatively select or develop managers from the match between existing profiles of
successful managers and those of candidates for appointment to management positions
◦ to predict presidents’ performance over time
◦ profile cultural differences, profiling mid-level managers in twelve countries
◦ profile leadership differences by gender, geographical region, industry, or role in a company

Transformational leadership style appears to be the dominant theoretical perspective.

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Leadership Theories
Early theories started from a focus on the individual leader and his or her traits. How they have shaped is
a) Take into account the context of the leadership situation.
b) Shift of focus from the observable behaviour of personal attributes to the intellectual exchange &
interpersonal relationships.
- Trait school: Focussed on leaders’ traits their physical appearance, capabilities & personalities
- Behaviour school : Emphasized on the styles. Leadership can be learned, and is not a trait people are
born with. Leadership differences in concern for people versus concern for production
- Contingency school: Appropriateness of different leadership styles in different leadership situations by
matching the personal characteristics.
Four styles of directive, supportive, participative and achievement oriented leadership, contingent on the
personality of the person being led and the situational ambiguity of a leader to the leadership situation.

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 Leadership Theories Cont..
Visionary and charismatic
school
Focus on organizational change.
Distinction between transactional and
transformational leadership styles.
Former emphasizes on rewards
contingent on meeting specified
performance targets, while the latter
emphasizes the development of visions,
presence of charisma, respect and trust.
Emotional intelligence school
Focuses on self management and
interaction management.
Emotional capabilities are more
important for leadership than intellectual
capabilities.
Six leadership styles, namely visionary,
coaching, affiliative, democratic,
pacesetting, and commanding. This
order of styles moves from very
democratic via supportive to
authoritative
Competence school:
Encompasses all the earlier schools.
Competence is hereby meant as a
specific combination of knowledge,
skills and personal characteristics.
Identified 15 leadership dimensions,
which then clustered under three
competences of intellectual (IQ),
emotional (EQ) and managerial (MQ).
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Competency based model

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Leadership in Projects
Traditionally project management is understood as using the right tools and techniques for being
successful, regardless of a project manager’s match of personality with project type
MBTI Model, Investigations on PM’s leadership done using case studies
Importance of Transformational Leadership ; creating a supportive environment;
PM’s categorizations as project star, promising newcomer, focused creative expert, uncreative decision-
maker, or thick-skinned pragmatist.
Both the project management procedures used and the project manager’s competence should be
selected
Different leadership competences relate to leadership success in different contents. Importance for
emotional competences in projects

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PROJECT SUCCESS
The factors identified did
not include project
manager’s competence
and focussed on risk
management, program
and portfolio
management.

1. Project managers 2. Project Managers then 3. Tools and techniques

identify the important identify success factors associated with those
success criteria for their that will help them factors are identified
project deliver those criteria

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MULLER AND TURNER – DEFINITION OF
PROJECT SUCCESS

• Muller and Turner found out high

correlation between success and
project manager’s leadership
competencies.

• 10 different success criteria

measured on 7-point Likert scale
was used.

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PROJECT TYPE
• A comprehensive study was done
in which the products were
categorized by their attributes

• List of possible categorizations is

almost infinite, however, some
categories are more often found
than others.

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 METHODOLOGY
QUESTIONNAIRE

• Web-based questionnaire

• Members of professional
organizations in project
QUESTIONNAIRE -1 QUESTIONNAIRE - 2
management were targeted

• Also master students pursuing

project management courses at
UK, Ireland, Australia, New
Zealand, USA, Canada. Leadership development
Questionnaire to access
Asked the respondents to
Asked the respondents to the respondent’s
judge based on their last
• 400 usable responses were project’s success
identify the project’s type leadership style and
gathered demographic
obtained data

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Analysis
Identifying competencies present prominently in project managers of top performing Projects

Segregating competencies which differ significantly in strength based on Project Types

Normalizing measurements and comparison of the result with a sample group

Categorising the scores of the competencies into high, medium and low

Drawing the Leadership profiles of managers of Top performing projects based on project Types

Comparing the three leadership styles as defined in literature with the leadership profiles and identifying
the closest fit
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Results
Results
Project Application Area Complexity

• Engineering projects : Strong • High : Scored high in all

competencies in critical dimensions
thinking (IQ), developing • Medium : Strong in critical
(MQ), influence, motivation thinking (IQ), managing
& conscientiousness (EQ); resources, empowering,
medium HRM dimensions developing (MQ), self
• ICT projects : Strong in all awareness, influence,
competencies, medium in conscientiousness,
vision (IQ) sensitivity (EQ)
• Organizational Change • Low : Not developed due to
Projects : Strong in all small sample size
competencies, medium in
developing, achieving (MQ)
& intuitiveness (EQ)
 Results (Contd..)
Importance Contracts
• Mandatory : Strong in critical thinking (IQ), managing • Fixed-price : Strong in all competencies, except
resources, empowering, developing (MQ), sensitivity, intuitiveness (EQ)
influence, motivation & conscientiousness (EQ) • Remeasurement : Strong in most competencies, except
• Renewal : Strong in all competencies, except vision vision & strategic perspective (IQ), communication,
(IQ) & intuition (EQ) empowering, achieving (MQ),
• Repositioning : Strong in all competencies, except & intuitiveness (EQ)
vision & strategic perspective (IQ), achieving (MQ), & • Alliance : Strong in most competencies; low in vision &
self awareness (EQ). strategic perspective (IQ), empowering, developing (MQ),
emotional resilience & intuitiveness (EQ)

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Conclusion

• Project manager leadership competency

profiles differ in some project types in
order to be successful

• High expressions of one IQ sub-

dimension (i.e. critical thinking) and three
EQ sub-dimensions (i.e. influence,
motivation and conscientiousness) in
successful managers in all types of
projects

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Implications
Theoretical Practical

Transactional leadership, and

concern for process, is more Leadership competencies
important on relatively simple should be taken into account
projects, but transformational when assigning project
leadership, and concern for managers to projects
people, is necessary on more-
demanding projects

As project managers progress Focus not only on technical and

they will need to enhance their management skills, but also on
leadership competencies, development of leadership
developing the emotional competencies
dimensions.

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References
Mumford, A., Zaccaro, S.J., Johnson, J.F., Diana, M., Gilbert, J.A., Threlfall, K.V., 2000. Patterns of
leader characteristics: implications for performance and development. Leadership Quarterly 11
(1), 115–133.
Mu¨ ller, R., Turner, J.R., 2007. Matching the project manager’s leadership style to project type.
International Journal of Project Management 25 (1), 21–32.

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 Thank you

Thank You !!

Any Questions?