De Montfort University

Masters of Business Administration (MBA)

Module: Project Management Module Code: PoPP5013

Report on Leadership and Team Working in Projects

Submitted to: Dr. Kathryn Jones and Dr. Steven Griggs

By: Nwani, Mark Kido

Student ID: P10523986 Date Submitted: 9th May, 2012

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(Word Count: 3,838)

Table of Contents
1.0 2.0 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 3.0. 3.1. Introduction Leadership Key Factors of Leadership that impact on a Project Outcome Vision Emotional Intelligence Motivation Directing and Scheduling Providing Problem-Solving Techniques Team Work Key Factors of Team work that impact on a Project Outcome 4 4 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 11 11 12 12 12 12 13 13

3.1.1. Cultural Misunderstanding 3.1.2. Conflicts 3.1.3. Implementation of Action Plans 3.1.4. Distributed Leadership 3.1.5. Communication 3.1.6. Innovation 3.1.7. Time Management 3.1.8. Fragmentation of Assigned Roles 4.0. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.3. 4.4. Conflict Management in Project Teams Suppression Smoothing Withdrawal Splitting Confrontation

4.5. 5.0. 6.0. 7.0.

Compromising Personal Reflection Conclusion References

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1.0. Introduction
According to Lock (2003, p. 3) the main aim of a project manager is to ensure the accomplishment of a project meets the expectations of its sponsor within the specified time indicted without exceeding the budgeted funds and resources set aside for it. Thus, a project achieves a desired outcome when all parties involved work together irrespective of differences in their background, portfolio and level of expertise to achieve a common goal. A project usually is made up of a team of staff led by the project manager whose primary role is strategic planning, delegation of duties, co-ordination of activities and monitoring of roles assigned to each member in the team, as well as motivating them to work more effectively by offering incentives where necessary.

The quest to achieve an anticipated outcome in a project work sometimes result in conflicts due to the fact that it may be the first time the team is working together or differences that may arise in the development of action plans to accomplish the project. It is paramount the project manager develop ways of containing the situation from escalating to the point where the project fails to meet its completion date by taking certain conflict management policies to resolve the conflict in order to reach a conclusive agreement that benefits all parties involved.

As such, this report would focus on giving an in-depth analysis of what effective leadership and team work in a project entails, how they impact on the outcome of a given project, as well as the conflict resolution avenues open to a project manager to implement in resolving conflicts that have the tendency to arise in the course of undertaking a project.

2.0. Leadership
Mantel, Meredith, Shafer and Sutton (2001, p. 35) indicted that leadership signifies the coordination of activities of other individuals or groups by giving them directions on how best to accomplish it, as well as keeping them motivated by ensuring they are enthusiastic, well informed and well organized so that they are able to integrate their working structure more effectively and engage in knowledge sharing. Furthermore, the portfolio of leadership is more facilitative in nature than authoritative due to the fact that its main role is to facilitate the emergence of sustainable harmony among team members/subordinates being led by way of not just monitoring and directing their activities, but also communicating efficiently before, during and after a project.
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Riaz and Haider (2010, pp. 29-30) held that there are two key types of leadership styles project managers usually adopt in leading their teams in order to enhance teams performance level and unify the working outline for a project. They are; transactional and transformational leadership styles. According to Avolio and Bass (1991) transactional leadership style entails the use of rewards/incentives by a leader to team members for accomplishing a project as a way of influencing and controlling their behaviour, as well as eliminating underperformance problems by encouraging them to develop a collective vision that focuses on factors beyond their self-interests.

Transformational leadership style on the other hand as explained by Avolio, Waldman, and Yammarino (1991, pp. 9-12) is characterized by four elements which they referred to as the four Is. They include; inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, idealised influence and intellectual stimulation. They further went on to stress that the end result of the transformational leadership style encompasses; increased organizational performance, longterm presence of the organization in the market through strategic policies that have been developed and sustained, enhanced charisma of team members as well as increased employee and customer satisfaction due to the creative insight and intuition of the leader.

Leadership as such plays a crucial role in the outcome of a project as it ensures project teams are well coordinated and focused on accomplishing the project through the adoption of a number of factors which would be discussed in the next section.

2.1. Key Factors of Leadership that Impact on a Project Outcome

Watson (2008, pp. 181-189) held that a project leader needs to possess certain key leadership skills in order to have a significant impact on the outcome of a project. They include; vision for team, emotional intelligence, motivation as so to ensure consistency in project teams working momentum, directing and scheduling of team members roles in order to delegate a job description that matches the proficiencies of each team member and providing problemsolving techniques to cushion the effect of conflicts that may arise during the project in order to ensure efficiency in service delivery when the project is completed.

2.1.1. Vision
According to Hallett (2008, pp. 62-65) vision is a key element in project management a leader needs to possess in order to effectively plan and organise the allocation of resources that ensures a project meets its desired outcome. It is the drive that enables a project leader formulate the right goals, objectives and strategies required to succeed in a project owing to the fact that it gives him a clear focus on what to do, how to go about generating the right resources and team to accomplish it and what the desired outcome of the project is likely to be if this is adhered to and sustained in the projects duration.

In addition to this Christenson and Walker (2004, pp. 39-45) viewed vision as being an intellectual work done through substantial creative work for the purpose of generating vital action plans needed to actualize a project and meet the deadline allotted to it. In essence, once a leader has a well-detailed vision of how to achieve a project and gathers the right team with relevant competencies, this would lead to the emergence a mutual satisfaction level of all parties to the project on its outcome.

2.1.2. Emotional Intelligence

Goleman (1995) contended that empathy has two key attributes which impact on a projects outcome. They include; social and personal competencies. Social competency consists of social awareness and relationship management, while the personal competency deals with self-awareness and self-management.

A project leader has the responsibility to possess these two traits as they give him an extensive insight on the feelings of project teams which aids in the decision making process to be developed so that they are carried along in its formulation in other to avoid conflict or lowering the working morals of team members who may be uncomfortable with the action plans devised.

2.1.3. Motivation
Schmid and Adams (2008, pp. 60-71) contended that what distinguishes a management of a project from general management is the temporal nature of the former, which leads to the formation of temporal teams (most of which have not worked together before) and also a temporal leader.
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In order to ensure the team formed work in harmony, they stressed that the project leader needs to encourage high intrinsic team motivation despite the fact that the overall organization policy may create a culture of low motivation. This is due to the fact that project teams need to be constantly motivated and high-spirited so that it translates to efficiency in their performance of a project.

2.1.4. Directing and Scheduling

Project teams need to have their roles effectively directed and scheduled by the projects leader in order to create a well-structured hierarchy of control which follows a centralised system of leadership that takes the top-down approach in order to reflect positively on the outcome of a project because it ensures an adherence of the laid down leadership structure in place by the project team.

In addition to this, project teams need to be efficiently governed so as not to result in the project being inconclusive due to the lack of a hierarchical chain of command. Thus, leadership in a project entails being strong-willed in formulating control measures that monitor the activities of a team following a particular order so as to meet the requirements of the project sponsor at its scheduled completion time.

2.1.5. Providing Problem-solving Techniques

The generation of systematic problem-solving techniques that project members need to implement is a critical aspect of leadership in a project due to its temporal nature and the fact that the teams selected to accomplish it may be working together for the first time. Additionally, disagreements are to an extent inevitable as a project progresses through its lifecycle and the project leader is charged with the responsibility of always proffering solutions on avenues to be taken to resolving it so as not to affect the project from reaching completion.

In addition to the above leadership elaborated factors, other important aspects of leadership that impact on the outcome of a project include; strong level of communication with project teams, planning effectively on how a project would be implemented and sustained, ability to listen and address critical issues affecting teams, incorporating the organizational values of the company into the project so as to reflect the level of competence of the company,
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strategic decision making on how a project should be carried out, formulation of a SWOT/PESTEL analysis for the project, being optimistic enough to give a well-detailed assessment of the project as it progress so as to inquire the level of achievement recorded and if changes need to be made in certain areas to enhance its value and the creation of risk management measures to leverage the impact of risks that may arise in the duration of the project.

3.0. Team work

The ability of a team to work effectively has to a significant extent become an element for measuring the efficiency of delivery of a project in an organization in terms of their capacity to work together to actualise a common goal within the duration of the project, while having strong communication capabilities for the purpose of sharing knowledge and fostering harmony through joint intellectual effort to achieve a desired result.

According to Welbourne, Johnson, and Erez (1998, pp.540 - 555) team work entails working with designated people to achieve the stated goals and objectives of an organization by ensuring each member of the team is carried along in the decision making process in order to reach a consensus on the likely strategies to the implemented in performing the project. A team becomes more effective when the project manager makes use of boundary spanners who are flexible enough to crossover several job descriptions due to their versatile know-how on various aspects of a project. Conrad (1990) indicted that the concept of boundary spanning originated from a general system of theory which views an organization as being made up of several parts and processes which need to be aligned through individuals with flexible skills capable of switching roles and sharing knowledge with colleagues, thereby not just building an effective team relationship, but also promoting strong rapport through a cross functional activities which is what effective team work in a project entails.

Summarily, a strong level of team work in a project leads to the creation of sustainable knowledge sharing and enhanced communication avenues which strengthens the working relationships of team members and enable them progress in mutual agreement at each stage of the project. In addition to this, there are a number of factors which relate to team work that impact on the outcome of a project and they would be analyzed in the next section.

3.1. Key Factors of Team work that impact on a Project Outcome

An overview of factors that relate to team work which impact on the outcome of a project include; cultural misunderstanding, conflicts, effective implementation of action plans, mutual understanding of the project, distributed leadership among the project team, consistent sustainable communication, innovation, time management, organizational bias among team members and efficient fragmentation of assigned roles.

3.1.1. Cultural Misunderstanding

Earley and Mosakowski (2000) indicated that getting teams to work effectively in a given project is a major issue not only because they may be working together for the first time, but because they may also have different backgrounds and ethnicity which affects their roles with other team members in a project.

In addition to this, Katzenbach and Smith (2003) contended that teams must have a constant demanding performance challenge to create and sustain themselves regardless of any differences that exist among them so that they are able to adopt strategies and policies formulated to achieve a common goal.

3.1.2. Conflicts
Amason (1996, pp. 139-148) and Jehn (1995, pp. 256-282) identified three types of conflict that exist among teams. They include; relationship conflict which is based on social and personal issues disagreed upon which have no relation which the project, task conflict which encompasses disagreement on the task being handled and process conflict which describes the disagreement on the delegation of roles as well as strategy to be implemented and resources to be channeled to it.

It is important the project manager and team know the distinguishing features of each of these conflict types in order to enable them develop techniques of managing the conflict to avoid it from escalating. Conflicts are inevitable in a project and need to be managed properly by all parties involved in the project so that the project can be achieved at its stipulated time.

3.1.3. Implementation of Action Plans

Project teams are usually charged with the responsibility of coming to a mutual agreement on the action plans to be adopted towards achieving a project. This is done by having a joint understanding on what the project entails, carrying feasibility studies to know how best to formulate strategies to accomplish it and also an assessment at each stage of the project to ascertain their progression level in order to know areas that need to be enhanced and also if they are going in line with the expectations for the project.

3.1.4. Distributed Leadership

Deming (1986) took the view that distributed leadership eliminates the emergence of an unjust system which annually rates team members based on their performance and as such annihilates the essence of team work because it often tends to nourish rivalries and politics among project teams which poses a threat to team work efficiency. As such, the aim of distributed leadership in a project is to empower team members to take responsibility for their assigned roles and ensure they build a strong working culture by functioning effectively together to achieve a common goal.

3.1.5. Communication
Quashie (2009, pp. 212-216) contended that the systems of communication need to be well structured in a way that in a way that is critically managed among project teams throughout the span of the project from its inception to completion for the project to be successful. In addition to this, he stressed that a project is performed through the use of entangled systems and processes within which it is difficult to achieve a strong level of success in a projects outcome without team-bonding efficiency using communication as an organizing factor that is given top priority to be sustained.

3.1.6. Innovation
Innovation and creativity among project teams is a key determinant factor to a projects outcome because it adds value to the set goals and objectives, creates a significant level of uniqueness in accomplishing the project so as to give the project team a competitive advantage over other groups and also ensures team members maximize their potentials to enhance the outlook of the project in its completion.

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3.1.7. Time Management

According to Kasturi and Gransberg (2002, p. 16) time management gives as extensive insight to the significance of team work in a projects delivery system as it ensures every team member is conscious of the timeline given to the project and dedicate more effort in their responsibilities. Furthermore, time management entails four key elements which are constantly adopted in project management for teams to be more effective and committed to actualising the common goal of the project. They include; activity logs, strategic planning, SWOT analysis and network programming, Kasturi and Gransberg (2002, p. 17-18).

3.1.8. Fragmentation of Assigned Roles

A distinct level of division in team members responsibilities is an essential element in team work owing to the fact that in as much as each team member has an assigned task to handle, some may not be as efficiently skilled as others and need to have their roles further subdivided so as to ensure boundary spanners provide support to them by performing crossfunctional roles that carries the project members along in order to increase their level of competency, Siu (2006, pp. 9-11).

Summarily, the key factors of team work that have a significant impact on the outcome of a project need to be adequately managed so that the project successfully progresses in its stages though the joint effort of the project leader and team members in ensuring the outlined plan is adhered to, with measures taken increase the cordial working relationship that exists among them.

4.0. Conflict Management in Project Teams

Thamhain and Wilemon (1975, p. 31-36) held that in the duration of a projects lifecycle detrimental aspects of conflict among project teams can be minimised if a project manager anticipates the tendency for potential conflicts to arise and understands the determinant factors that led to it so that strategies can be formulated to contain it. Due to the temporal nature of a project and other factors such as the likelihood the project selected team members may by working together for the first time, conflicts maybe inevitable and project managers are charged with the responsibility to effectively manage it so that the main goal of the project is not altered.

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According to Meredith and Mantel (2003, p. 295-296) a party to a conflict will be satisfied when the level of frustration being faced has been significantly lowered to the point where no action, either present or future is contemplated against the other party or parties in the dispute. As such, a conflict is said to be resolved when parties involved are jointly satisfied with the outcome of measures adopted by the project manager to manage it.

Thus, certain critical modes need to be implemented by a project manager to manage conflicts that arise in among project teams in order to ensure continuity in their job description which invariably translates to a positive outcome of the project. These modes according to Blake and Mouton (1964, pp. 18-203) include; suppression, smoothing, withdrawal, splitting, confrontation and compromising.

4.1. Suppression
This encompasses dealing with the conflict by adopting a cutting it off framework, which implies the project manager deals with the conflict the way he deems appropriate. In this mode, resistance to working more effectively due to team disagreement is eliminated by the project manager through the application of the authority-obedience control formula and letting the disputing parties know any decision made is final and cant be altered for any reason.

4.2. Smoothing
This entails the process of striving to talk conflicting parties out of the conflict by persuading them to come to a mutual agreement on how good things are, as opposed to how bad things might be. Here the project manager strives to integrate team members working structure and enhance the level of working harmony among the team by even going the extra mile to treat divergent viewpoints in a generally open way that the parties in the dispute never come to grips with.

4.3. Withdrawal
Withdrawal as a form of conflict management relates to a situation where the project manager doesnt take any action in try to resolve the dispute in a project team as he perceives the situation is likely to disappear with time. In this mode, when decisions are made and project
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members question certain aspects of it in a quest to create a tensed atmosphere with regards their functions in the project, the project manager simply doesnt insist on implementation and leaves responsibility on how they choose to undertake the project to them.

The project team always tend to work more closely and better overtime if the mode is adopted due to the less interference of the project manager in their roles unless it reaches a state where there is a likelihood of the conflict jeopardizing his portfolio and he needs to take decisive actions to cushion it.

4.4. Splitting
This deals with keeping the team members to the dispute apart until factors that led to the conflicts emergence are addressed and resolved amicably. The idea behind keeping both teams in distance of each other is designed to enable the project manager find an agreeable meeting ground by splitting the differences to get a resolution the appeals to the parties involved so as to ensure their strong working culture is unhindered in carrying out their assigned roles.

4.5. Confrontation
Directly confronting the project teams involved in a conflict gives the project manager the ability to correct the causes that led to the conflict and proffer a joint remedy on how best to avoid its occurrence during the cause of the project. Confrontation enables dialogue to take place and the team members involved in the conflict air their views on how exactly they feel which enables to project manager effectively explore resolution avenues open to him.

4.6. Compromising
This entails a process whereby the project manager searches and bargains for solutions to a conflict which eventually brings a significant satisfaction level to the parties involved in the dispute on the resolutions reached. Thus it follows a give-and-take approach in dealing with conflicts by finding a desirable meeting point which the conflicting teams are ready to adopt to resolve the dispute on agreeable terms.

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5.0. Personal Reflection

Spencer (1993) identified six key personal characteristics of a project manager that ensures a project is accomplished with the time set for it. They include; helping and human service, cognitive ability, personal effectiveness, managerial & impact and influence. During the course of the individual and group reports respectively, I have been able to acquire the cognitive and personal effectiveness competencies which aided in formulating the right level of ideas and information channels that where embarked upon to get the relevant materials to actualize this report, while ensuring consistency in communication avenues among my team members so that ideas where shared and collated to form a group presentation that had the joint approval of all parties involved. This process on the long-run had a great impact on the inputs generated for this individual report and I intend to do a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Project Management course in order to further expand my project management know-how and apply it in my organizational management field in the not too distant future.

6.0 Conclusion
In conclusion it can be seen that effective leadership and team work plays a significant role on the outcome of a project as they both have to maintain a consistent level of harmony and efficiency in carrying out their assigned tasks to meet the stipulated time given for the project to be completed. Furthermore, project managers are charged with the responsibility of implementing appropriate conflict resolution avenues as outlined by Blake and Mouton (1964) in managing conflicts that may arise among team members during a project so that the stages of the project are unhindered, which translates to a joint satisfaction of all parties to the project on its outcome.

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7.0. References
Amason, A. C. (1996), Distinguishing the Effects of Functional and Dysfunctional Conflict on Strategic Decision Making: Resolving the Paradox for Top Management Teams, Academy of Management Journal, 39, 1, pp. 139-148

Avolio, B. and Bass, B. (1991), Full-Range Training of Leadership: Manual, Bass/Avolio & Associates, Binghamton, New York.

Avolio B., Waldman, D. and Yammarino, F. (1991), Leading in the 1990's: The Four I's of Transformational Leadership, Journal of European Industrial Training, 15, 4, pp. 9-16

Blake, R. R. and Mouton, J. S. (1964), The Managerial Grid: Key Orientations for Achieving Production Through People, 3rd Edition, Gulf Publishing Company, Houston, U.S.A.

Christenson, D. and Walker, D. H. T. (2004), Understanding the Role of "Vision" in Project Success, Project Management Journal, 35, 3, pp. 39-52

Conrad, C. (1990), Strategic Organizational Communication: An Integrated Perspective, Second Edition, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Fort Worth, Texas

Deming, E. W. (1986), Out of the Crisis, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, Australia

Earley, P. C. and Gibson, C. B. (2002), Multinational Work Teams: A New Perpective, Mahwah, N. J., London - Earley and Mosakowski (2000)

Goleman, D., (1995), Emotional intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ, Bantam Books, New York

Hallett, A. (2008), 'From VISION to ACTION', New Zealand Management, 55, 2, pp. 62-65

Jehn, K (1995), A Multimethod Examination of the Benefits and Detriments of Intragroup Conflict, Administrative Science Quaterly, 40, 2, pp. 256-282
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Kasturi, S., and Gransberg, D. (2002), Time Management- A Design-Build Builder's Perspective, Cost Engineering, 44, 9, p. 16-23

Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2003). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the HighPerformance Organization, New York: Harper Collins Publishers Lock, D. (2003), Project Management, 8th Edition, Gower Publishing Limited, Hampshire, U.K.

Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M. and Sutton, M. M. (2001), Project Management in Practice, John Wiley and Sons, New York, U.S.A. Maylor, H. (2005), Project Management, 3rd Edition, Pearson Education Limited, Essex, England

Meredith, J. R. and Mantel, S. J. Jr. (2003), Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 5th Edition, John Riley and Sons Inc., New York, U.S.A.

Quashie, S. (2009), Systems of Communication and Management in the Construction Industry, Proceedings of the European Conference on Management, Leadership & Governance, pp. 212-221

Riaz, A. and Haider, M. H. (2010), The Role of Transformational and Transactional Leadership on Job Satisfaction and Career Satisfaction, Peer Review and Open Access Journal, 1, 1, pp. 29-38

Schmid, B, and Adams, J (2008), Motivation in Project Management: The Project Manager's Perspective, Project Management Journal, 39, 2, pp. 60-71 Siu, L. H. (2006), The Boundary Spanners Role in Organizational Learning: Unleashing Untapped Potential, Development and Learning in Organizations, 20, 5, pp. 9-11

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Spencer, L. (1993). Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance, John Wiley & Sons, New York

Thamhain, H. J. and Wilemon, D. L. (1975) Conflict Management in Project Life Cycles, Sloan Management Review (pre-1986), 16, 3, p. 31-50

Watson, P. (2008), A Methodology for Attaining and Assessing Project Success for Rehabilitation Projects, Journal of Building Appraisal, 4, 3, pp. 181-189

Welbourne, T. M., Johnson, D. E., and Erez, A., (1998), The Role-based Performance Scale: Validity Analysis of a Theory-based Measure, Academy of Management Journal, 41, 5, pp.540 - 555.

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