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Project leadership as a research field:
Antecedents, current research and a critique
Dr Monica Lindgren, associate professor
KTH – Royal Institute of Technology
School of Industrial Engineering and Management
Lindstedtsvägen 30, 10044 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
and
Dr Johann Packendorff, associate professor
KTH – Royal Institute of Technology
School of Industrial Engineering and Management
Lindstedtsvägen 30, 10044 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Phone: +46 8 790 6058, E-mail: [email protected]
Unpublished paper (2009), KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
Project leadership as a research field:
Antecedents, current research and a critique
Abstract
The use of project-based organizing is a widespread phenomenon in contemporary
economy and society. While the actual leadership task – leading a temporary task
force towards the successful delivery of a complex goal – is in many ways an instance
of general team leadership, the professionalization of Project Management has
resulted in the build-up of specialized knowledge bases derived from theoretical and
empirical inquiry into settings labeled as ‘projects’. Based on this reasoning, this
paper reviews the knowledge base on project leadership as it is expressed in
international scholarly literature. We start by tracing the historical developments
back to the roots of the Project Management field, and continue by reviewing the
current research trends. Extant research is problematized in terms of individualism,
theoretical foundation and empirical basis.
Keywords
Project Management, project leadership, project-based organizations, leadership
research
1. Introduction: Project leadership as a field of inquiry
During the last decades, projects have become a common form of work organization
in all sectors of the global economy. One reason for this development is that many
products and services are becoming increasingly customized and complex, implying
their execution to be a unique sequence of actions performed by a specialized
temporary task force. Another reason is the ever-increasing pace of change in society,
resulting in an abundance of change and development efforts in organizations
(Ekstedt et al, 1999). An increasing number of firms in the forefront of these
developments become “project-based”, which means that almost all operations are
organized as projects and that permanent structures fill the function of
administrative support (cf Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006; Whitley, 2006).
The basic reason for this diffusion of project-based organizing seems to be that the
project – viewed as a task specific and time-limited form of working – is perceived as
a way of avoiding all the classic problems of bureaucracy with which most ”normal”
organizations are struggling (Packendorff, 1995; Pinto, 1996). In that sense, project-
based work is a part of the wave of new ‘post-bureaucratic’ organizational forms that
has entered most industries during the last decades (cf Clegg & Courpasson, 2004;
Gill, 2002; Hodgson, 2004; Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006). In many major
corporations, the development towards project-based structures has been seen as
inevitable, natural and desirable (Söderlund & Tell, 2009).
One of the consequences of the ‘projectification’ of industries and societies is that
project leadership has become an increasingly usual task for members of modern
organizations. While only a gifted and/or lucky few of the world’s students of
business or engineering will make it to the upper floors of corporate headquarters, a
majority of them are likely to lead some sort of project not long after entering their
professional careers. While project work may still be an exception in traditional
manufacturing industry or in governmental administration, it is the normal way of
working in industries such as construction, telecom, ICT, consultancy, biotech, etc.
Almost all R&D operations anywhere are organized by projects, and so is an
increasing share of complex customer deliveries. Moreover, inter-organizational
arrangements such as joint venture, alliances, temporary collaborations etc are also
often organized as projects. As a consequence, the competence to organize project-
based operations in an effective manner is seen as a core competence in many
modern corporations (Söderlund, 2005, Söderlund & Tell, 2009). There is thus a
constant need and growing demand for people with the ability to lead projects
successfully.
Not surprisingly, project leadership is well on its way towards professionalization.
Although the content and context of project leadership varies a lot – being the project
leader of a major construction project in Dubai is certainly something different as
compared to coordinating a small distributed project network of ERP consultants (cf
Shenhar, 1998) – project leadership is nowadays being constructed as a distinct and
homogenous practice. This is mainly due to the general developments within the
Project Management area, promoting the project as a distinct work form and project
managers as a distinct occupation. The main global actors in the area, such as the
professional associations Project Management Institute (PMI) and the International
Project Management Association (IPMA) began creating international project
management standards in the late 1980’s. Today, both organizations offer a range of
professional certifications. In order to be certified, candidates must demonstrate both
theoretical knowledge based on the standards, and documented practical experience
from project work. As an increasing number of corporations require these
certifications from their project managers, project leadership is in a rapid process of
professionalization.
As noted by Hodgson & Cicmil (2007), this development also constitutes a reification
of the project as an object to be managed, thereby establishing projects and the
management of projects as homogenous, universal and distinct phenomena – despite
the actual internal variety. And as project leadership knowledge is an integral part of
project management standards, leadership research is heavily involved in the
ongoing construction of the project management profession. This does not make
project leadership a unique phenomenon as compared to other forms of leadership; it
neither implies special practical tools or tricks, nor does it imply a special theoretical
body clearly separated from general leadership theory. But it is still treated as a
special sub-field of leadership, socially constructed as such through the general
differentiation of project management from other managerial fields – not least
through the very labeling of certain organizational processes as ‘projects’ and the
intense efforts undertaken by associations such as IPMA and PMI to create a project
management profession (Hodgson & Cicmil, 2007).
To sum up, the use of project-based organizing is a widespread phenomenon in
contemporary economy and society. While the actual leadership task – leading a
temporary task force towards the successful delivery of a complex goal – is in many
ways an instance of general team leadership, the professionalization of Project
Management has resulted in the build-up of specialized knowledge bases derived
from theoretical and empirical inquiry into settings labeled as ‘projects’. Based on
this reasoning, the aim of this paper is to review the knowledge base on project
leadership as it is expressed in international scholarly literature. We will start by
tracing the historical developments back to the roots of the Project Management field,
and continue by reviewing the current research trends. In the end of the paper, we
will point at some problems of this literature but also at interesting possible future
avenues.
2. Antecedents of project leadership research
The basis of project management is the need for the rational handling of temporary
tasks, tasks that can not be handled through permanent organizational arrangements.
This point at project leadership as mainly a task-oriented phenomenon where
relations can (temporarily) be set aside for the efficient execution of the project plan
(Bryman et al, 1987, Goodman, 1981). At the same time, both projects and the people
in them belong to a surrounding permanent organizational context that must also be
controlled and managed. Consequently, the traditional project leadership literature
has focused on leadership as the simultaneous task of project-internal team
management of technical specialists and project-external management of business
managers and clients, often in the structural setting of matrix organizations.
Where the stream on project leadership is concerned, it started out in 1959 when Paul
O. Gaddis published his seminal article ‘The Project Manager’ in Harvard Business
Review. Gaddis defined the new task of being a project manager and also identified
some important characteristics that such an individual needed to have in order to be
successful. Among those was the double ability to handle both technological research
and business matters, and to advance the project process both in relation to the
project team and to the external stakeholders. Already from the outset, project
leadership thus was described as a new kind of leadership assignment as compared
to the existing ones, a kind of assignment requiring special qualifications, methods,
skills and behaviors. It is therefore not surprising that many of the subsequent
research publications on project leadership reported on empirical inquiry into this
new field; questioning what qualifications that were needed for someone to become
project leader, what methods that would help this leader achieve success, what skills
that were most important for the leader to develop, and what behaviors that worked
best in communicating with stakeholders and building the team. In a field dominated
by rationalist models and tools derived from Operations Analysis, leadership was
often seen as a ”soft” or ”human” phenomenon that was needed in order to make the
project team deliver according to plan (Packendorff, 1995). At the same time, it was
already from the start acknowledged that the management of projects and temporary
systems had its own specific problems and characteristics that current theorizing did
not cover (Gaddis, 1959, Miles, 1964).
In his portrayal of the new project manager, Gaddis (1959) depicted a boundary-
crossing Jack-of-all-trades able to handle both advanced technological issues and
complicated business matters. It was not expected from this individual to be the best
engineer or the best businessman in the organization, but the double abilities and the
double set of experiences was. In project leadership literature, this reasoning came to
be extended to a specific interest in the individuals that are actually able to perform
such a role. A vast stream of empirically based research literature followed, usually
based on studies of what real life project managers did and/or said they did.
The main stream of research thus came to focus on the extraction of success factors
on the individual level. Project leaders were interviewed and observed, and their
perceived characteristics and behaviors were linked to project outcomes in various
ways. The empirical setting was usually a functional matrix organization, where
project leaders worked with borrowed resources and thus did not control their areas
of responsibility entirely (Avots, 1969; Barker et al, 1988; Butler, 1973; Gullett, 1972;
Hodgetts, 1968; Jonason, 1971; Middleton, 1967; Reeser, 1969). This research was
often published in well-known management journals and is still widely referred to
within the Project Management field.
In these early literatures, general leadership theories were often brought in as a
conceptual background in order to explain the empirical patterns discovered. It was
thus e.g. suggested that project leaders should employ a participative leadership
style and lead through ideas and visions (Barker et al, 1988; Goodman & Goodman,
1976; Jessen, 1992; Silverman, 1987; Thamhain, 1987; Thamhain & Gemmill, 1974).
The project manager was supposed to be more task-oriented than the average leader,
but at the same time there were studies indicating that increased relational
orientation was positively correlated with project effectiveness (Bryman et al, 1987).
There were also a number of competence-seeking studies relating project success to
various traits and abilities. For example, the project leader should have the ability to
motivate the team and make people enthusiastic about the project (Fabi and
Pettersen, 1992; Jessen, 1992; Owens & Martin, 1986; Roman, 1986), and to create a
good organizational climate (Barczak & Wilemon, 1989; Jabri et al, 1986; Jessen, 1992).
Project leaders also should be able to facilitate internal communication (Barczak &
Wilemon, 1989; Tushman, 1978) as well as handling external contacts and
stakeholders (Barczak & Wilemon, 1989; Katz & Tushman, 1981; Slevin, 1983). Other
abilities called for was coordinative and integrative skills (Fabi & Pettersen, 1992;
Pinto & Prescott, 1988; Silverman, 1987; Thamhain, 1987), information acquisition
skills (Roberts & Fusfeld, 1981; Slevin, 1983) and conflict solving skills (Owens &
Martin, 1986; Thamhain, 1987). All this while the traditional tasks to plan, make
decisions, maintain discipline and control performance remains (Woodward, 1982),
albeit unevenly distributed over the project lifecycle (Pinto & Prescott, 1988).
As most of this research today constitutes the base for practical advice and bodies of
knowledge, it should also be of interest to analyze how it is presented in textbooks
aimed for the general audience. For this purpose we have selected three different
textbooks where this field is dealt with, all of them considered to be authoritative
texts within the Project Management field. The three books are Vijay K. Verma’s
Human Resource Skills for the Project Manager (1996), published by PMI as a part of
their efforts to summarize project management knowledge, Jack Meredith and
Samuel Mantel’s widely used teaching textbook Project Management: A Managerial
Approach (2006), and Harold Kerzner’s well-known and almost encyclopedic
reference text Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and
Controlling (2006). In each case, we have looked (1) for the general theoretical
foundation within leadership research, and (2) for theoretical foundations linked
directly to earlier in-field project research.
Verma devotes the entire book to project leadership, and concentrates on the issues
of communication, motivation, conflict, negotiation, stress management and the
management of project environments. Each issue is treated out from a number of
theoretical models, and as the book is published by one of the leading professional
associations, it is also full of practical advice to the project manager. All sections of
the book appear to be based on general models in each field, models adapted from
other textbooks or from state-of-the-art knowledge. For example, the section on
motivation makes the well-known tour from Maslow and Hertzberg to Expectancy
Theory, Reinforcement Theory and Equity Theory. Likewise, the section actually
connected to the field of leadership studies starts out with describing the traits
approach to leadership, then drawing upon the behavioral approach, the
situational/contingency approach, and the attributional and charismatic theories of
leadership – i.e. the same characterization offered by general overviews such as Parry
& Bryman (2006). Well-known models on group development stages are also
introduced as basis for the advice. Among the few models and theories actually
based on empirical research on projects we find references to Slevin & Pinto (1988) on
motivation, Hill (1977) and Thamhain & Wilemon (1975) on conflict management,
and Wilemon & Gemmill (1970) and Posner (1987) on project manager traits and
abilities. Different theoretical perspectives are rarely contrasted to each other; they
are rather used as complementary sources of inspiration to practical advice.
Meredith & Mantel (2006) start out their chapters on leadership by stating that the
project manager is different from functional managers – project management is about
synthesis and integration while functional management is about analytical
breakdown of problems into components. Project managers are always maneuvering
in complex organizational environments and will need both technical and
administrative credibility. They then move on to list recommendable traits and
abilities of the project manager. Among the most important is a diplomatic sensitivity,
stress handling, a sense of ethics and intercultural skills. With reference to Shenhar
(1998) it is noted that different projects may require different leadership styles,
otherwise the advice is general. Meredith & Mantel refers almost exclusively to
different papers and reports produced within the project management community,
of which the most notable research references are Slevin & Pinto (1991) on leadership
and Thamhain & Wilemon’s (1975) “definitive” (p. 215) article on conflict in project
teams. Almost no reference is made to any general leadership theories or
perspectives, other than to popular books on management and leadership.
Kerzner (2006) devotes several sections in his book to management and leadership
aspects of project leadership. Referring to Wilemon & Cicero (1970) he asserts that
project managers must have both business management and technical expertise, and
he also recognizes the impossibilities of finding people that have all the qualifications
listed in the literature. He also traces a development within project management
practice from technical to business skills, and from planning work to integration
work. Teamwork is described as the central aspect of project management: the
project manager will usually be responsible for a diverse group of specialists that
need to be integrated towards the final project goal. General leadership theories
referred to are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and Hersey & Blanchard’s situational
leadership model – otherwise, Kerzner’s aim seem to be to offer an abundance of
practical advice on tools and problem-solving methods.
3. Current research trends
As the field of Project Management gradually became a distinct and demarcated area
of scientific inquiry, there was an increase of specialized researchers publishing in
specialized journals. The two main journals are the Project Management Journal
(published from 1969 by PMI) and the International Journal of Project Management
(published from 1983 in collaboration with IPMA). For the sake of this review we
have looked into the International Journal of Project Management during the past two
decades, as the journal is indexed as the main source of current research articles on
project leadership (cf the Scopus database). The aim of this reading was to analyze
the extent to which project leadership is a current topic within the project research
community and also to identify any current themes and/or trends in this research.
It appeared that the number of articles explicitly dealing with any aspect of project
leadership was actually very small1, and intra-field authors such as Sotirlou &
Wittmer (2001) indicate dissatisfaction with the tendency to rely on early studies
such as Thamhain & Gemmill (1974) & Hodgetts (1968). Kangis & Lee-Kelley (2000)
make a similar observation:
“Despite the plethora of leadership studies in diverse situations, relatively little
attention seems to have been given to examining the variables involved in the
context of managing the operations of temporary, small groups […]. Project
management is a powerful tool for operational management as well as for
strategic change. It is also useful for the implementation of initiatives such as
business process re-engineering and total quality management, hence its
increasing use. Projects are goal-oriented, budget-driven, timeline specific and
generally operate outside the conventional organization structure of a firm.
Such characteristics can create interesting challenges for the project manager,
who has to cut across established lines of control. However, despite its
increased adoption, not much is known on the relationship between leadership
behavior and managing these structures.” (Kangis & Lee-Kelley, 2007: 393f).
In our sample of articles, the main stream of current research on project leadership
deals with the relation between the project manager’s leadership style and the
situational requirements of specific types of projects. Most of this research draws
upon the seminal work by Fielder (1967), which became the foundation of the
1 The article search was made in November, 2008. Using ’leadership’ as a keyword in a search at the
journal homepage in ScienceDirect, we obtained a total of 48 articles. Of these, 25 explicitly dealt with aspects of leadership that could be related to leadership theory. 18 of these articles were published after the year 1999, indicating a growing interest in project leadership research. Given that the journal has published about 1.300 articles since its start, it seems to us that the leadership aspect is under-researched.
situational/contingency approach to leadership. In short, this approach states that
team effectiveness are dependent upon the leader’s personality as related to the
perceived environment. In very difficult or very simple situations, task-oriented
leaders are preferable, while relationship-oriented leaders are better at handing
situations with moderate degrees of complexity and urgency. Over the past years,
this has been studied in IT services projects (Thite, 2000, Lee-Kelley & Leong Loong,
2003), construction projects in Thailand (Ogunlana et al, 2002), design consulting
projects (Cheung et al, 2001) and in clinical research projects (Kangis & Lee-Kelley,
2000). In general, the research supports Fielder’s hypotheses and identifies certain
leadership abilities and traits that are recommendable given the project situation at
hand. There are also related research (departing from other conceptual sources)
generalizing similar findings to all project managers from a certain national culture
(Mäkilouko, 2004), to project managers in relation to line managers (Keegan & Den
Hartog, 2004), to project managers in the specific sector of construction (Toor & Ofori,
2008) and to the relation between project managers and project types in general
(Müller & Turner, 2007). Common for this research is the assumption that different
individuals represent different leadership styles and that they are consequently
suitable for different project tasks, types or environments. In almost all cases, this
was investigated by means of quantitative analyses of survey data.
In addition, there are also some minor streams of research related to project
leadership, again investigating individual project managers. El-Sabaa (2001)
investigated the relation between skill profiles and career paths of project managers,
concluding that the continuous broadening of functional and technical skills was
necessary for a project management career. Aitken & Crawford (2007) investigated
stress coping strategies of project managers, and Gällstedt (2003) made a qualitative
study on critical incidents in projects and their relation to perceptions of motivation
and stress. Based on a large survey, Dolfi & Andrews (2007) concluded that project
leaders were better to be optimists in order to be able to handle the sometimes hard
working conditions. None of these texts did explicitly relate to the general body of
leadership research, however. Instead, Kaulio (2008) suggested the inductive way of
formulating leadership theories within project management by departing from
observations of the handling of critical incidents rather than from detailed theoretical
constructs.
A few of the articles explicitly used new conceptual developments in general
leadership research. Toor & Ofori (2008) proposed the emerging concept of authentic
leadership for the study of construction project management, against the background
of recent scientific debates within leadership research in general (cf Avolio &
Gardner, 2005). Authentic project leaders are presented as individuals with positive
energy and moral integrity, motivated by the well-being of people around them,
supporting their followers into taking responsibilities themselves. Wang et al (2005)
provide a most similar view on the general term charismatic leadership (cf Conger,
1999), using a survey to conclude the positive effects of a charismatic leadership style
on the performance of ERP implementation projects.
4. Project leadership research: Problems and promises for the future
Given the brief review above, we will now turn to what issues we see as problematic
and in need for critical debate in the field of project leadership.
Individual focus. Almost all empirical and theoretical studies of project leadership
implicitly assume a perspective of leadership as synonymous with a single
individual, a leader. There is a tradition in the project management field of viewing
the project manager as an individual, a tradition which is strengthened by the
current wave of individual project management certifications sweeping over the
world. At the same time, current developments in leadership research emphasize
teamwork and views of team leaders as facilitators, implying that important
knowledge on leadership are to be found in the relation between team members
rather than in the leader as an individual (Pearce & Conger, 2003, Uhl-Bien, 2006,
Crevani et al, 2007). From a practical perspective, the focus on individuals can also be
questioned as project managers often neither have the technical skills of their team
members nor the power base of their superiors in the project-based structure.
Traits and “pseudo-traits” focus. In accordance with the interest in project managers as
individuals, there is also an interest in their personalities. If a project is led by one
person, and that person is of vital importance to project success, then it is of course
most interesting to find out what individuals that are suited for such a task – or at
least to find out ways how to find them out. Individuals are therefore mostly treated
as if they possessed certain traits, and some of the newer research does also explicitly
use established psychometric tools to investigate traits in successful project managers.
But there are also several examples in the older literature of “pseudo-traits” – what
good project managers should be able to do, or even what good project managers are
supposed to do (cf Barber & Warn, 2005) – presented in the form of requirements on
the individuals considered for project leadership assignments. The danger of an un-
reflexive “pseudo-traits” approach is of course that people are seen as bearers of a
simplified set of unchangeable qualities rather than as active and developing actors,
and that the use (or non-use) of project management tools become a part of these
unchangeable qualities. If not based on clear theoretical constructs, there is always a
risk that the empirical inquiry into project leaders’ behavior results in a confusion of
personality traits, competencies, actions and familiarity with the PM toolbox (for an
example, see Strang, 2007). An alternative to the inquiry into the competencies and
personalities would of course be an interest in leadership practices as they unfold
during project processes (cf Carroll et al, 2008).
Project focus. While one of the most important trends in the project management field
is the moving of focus from single projects to multi-project management and project
portfolio management (Engwall, 2003, Whitley, 2006) project leadership research
remains focused on the single project as if that was the most important unit to lead.
Today, both project managers and project team members often work in several
projects in parallel, implying that the single project is no longer the only relevant
level of analysis (Söderlund, 2004, Zika-Viktorsson et al, 2006). Moreover, an
increasing amount of leadership work is instead taking place in project management
offices (PMO’s) or among project sponsors. The continued focus on single projects
may also have dysfunctional consequences, such as conserving old autonomous
ideas about project leadership that are not suited to modern portfolio thinking, or
maintaining the traditional group dynamics view of a project team as working
together face-to-face throughout the project duration (in spite of the increased use of
short-term specialists and virtual teams, cf Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999).
Lack of theoretical reflexivity. Insofar different schools of thought in the general
leadership research literature are indeed drawn upon; they are usually treated as
complementary evidence that can be used to inform the project management
community on how to improve project leadership practices. At the same time, these
schools of thought actually rest upon different scientific assumptions and in several
cases they are in direct conflict with each other. For example, a leadership theory
explaining project success out from leadership style can hardly be seen as
complementary to one emphasizing personal traits in the individual leader or one
viewing leadership as a process of group interaction. There is a clear need for
conscious discussions on the ontological, epistemological and axiological
foundations of research (cf Lindgren & Packendorff, 2009), instead of the usual
implicit assumption that Project Management is a field in its own right that can
formulate its own leadership theories without too much help from the outside.
Lack of empirical research. One evident consequence of the shortage of thorough,
theoretically informed research on project leadership is that the empirical
foundations of all the normative advice may become weak. In general, it seems that
the better the theoretical foundation, the better the achieved empirical support for the
conclusions. Otherwise, the field tend to rely on exploratory research (often made
decades ago) mapping empirical patterns rather than testing theoretical hypotheses
or developing theory.
To conclude this discussion, there is a need for more empirical studies on project
leadership, based on thorough and well-founded theoretical reasoning and on an
interest in actual practices. The range of theoretical schools within leadership
research that can be applied to project leadership is also far wider than the current
preoccupation with various aspects of contingency theory and leadership style.
Moreover, a widened view and explicit discussions on the foundations of project
leadership research can also contribute to a re-formulation of the project leadership
ideals that fills the literature today, ideals that rather serve to re-masculinize work
life than promoting new ways of working and living (Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006).
Still, there are also promises for the future inherent in project leadership as a
theoretical and practical field of inquiry. The interest in using concepts and
methodologies from general leadership research seem to be on the rise, and so is the
level of sophistication in current research. Projects and project-based organizations
should also be interesting empirical settings for the development of general
leadership research, not least in the development of new concepts such as authentic
leadership, charismatic leadership, post-heroic leadership and the conceptual family
capturing forms for shared/distributed leadership.
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