An Empirical Study on Project Managers’ Leadership Behavioral Practices Impacting Project Success – The Australian Construction Sector

Figures & data

Table 1. List of identified attributes from research studies literature review.

Identified Attributes
1. Leadership Practices Relationships Motivation Influence. Visionary Goal Oriented. Trust, Encouragement, Communication Inspire Task-Oriented Team Building Stakeholders Empowerment Commitment Emotions Effective Communication Conflict Management Flexibility Self-Management Coaching Goal Setting Share Information Self-Awareness Seeking Feedback Sensitivity Leading by Example Caring Others Empathy Self-Development Humility.	2. Communication Formal communication Informal communication Frequency of communication Respect each other’s viewpoints. Share events and Changes willingly. Follow a trust communication mechanism. Defined communication purpose Clear communication without any ambiguity. Understand communication with others. Knowledge of audience to communicate. Current & meaningful information Proper methods/media/channels. Achieved the expected outcome. Open and honest communication Tailor communication routines to the specific stakeholders Communication barriers	3. Relationship Management Sense others’ developmental needs Inspire individuals and groups. Use effective communication/tactics. Lead people in a new direction. Manage change. Negotiate in resolving disagreements collaboratively. Work to build and maintain relationships with others.	4. Conflict Management Respect others’ perspectives. Recognize conflict in an early stage. Encourage all parties to communicate willingly. Resolve conflict amicably. Work effectively to resolve. Solve relationship issues. Build consensus. Manage ambiguous situations. Maintain self-control.	5. Project Success The project was completed on time. The project was completed within the budget. The project met the quality needs. Performance achieved to the team’s satisfaction. Managed to the satisfaction of all project stakeholders. Achieved end users. Satisfaction. Ensure the satisfaction of the suppliers involved Achieved the project’s purpose. The project fulfilled its success criteria. Implement a safety culture. The project met sustainability-dimensions.

Table 2. Respondents (project managers) demographicsrespondent number = 66.

Characteristics	Category	Frequency	Percentage (%)
Age	<30 Years	Nil	Nil
	30–40 Years	8	12.1
	40–50 years	25	37.9
	>50 Years	33	50.0
Designation	Project Manager	32	48.5
	Project Leader	34	51.5
Education Background	Diploma	1	1.5
	Bachelor’s Degree	26	39.4
	Master’s Degree	33	50.0
	PhD	3	4.5
	Job Experience	5	4.5
Professional Experience in Construction Industry	10 Years	7	10.6
	10–20 Years	17	25.8
	20–30 Years	21	31.8
	30–40 Years	4	13.6
	>40 Years	12	18.2
Professional Experience as Project Manager/Project Leader	10 Years	18	27.3
	10–20 Years	26	39.4
	20–30 Years	14	21.2
	30–40 Years	6	9.1
	>40 Years	2	3
Project Site Location	Single Site	21	31.8
	Multi-Sites	45	45
Project Complexity	Low	4	6.1
	Medium	31	47
	High	31	47

Table 3. Summary of extracted latent/underlying factors.

Extracted Factors	Factor Loading	%Age of Variance Explained	Cumulative %age Variance Explained
LBSF1: Team Encouragement and Empowerment
10. I show concern & care about our team member’s well-being & show empathy and compassion	0.722
17. I encourage my team members to express new ideas/opinions/suggestions for continuous improvement	0.717
20. I am conscious of my project team’s contribution and appreciate their efforts to the project’s success.	0.620
28. I praise and appreciate team members’ contributions individually for the job well done.	0.629
29. I am aware of my limitations and appreciate my team members’ strengths and contributions in helping me to engage with them	0.561	35.161	35.161
LBSF2: Leading by Example
8. I set a good example of my behavior (communication and listening skills) with my project team and stakeholders	0.567
11. I set high standards for performance for myself and adhere to the agreed-upon standards.	0.641
14. I work hard to achieve the project goals.	0.640
16. I keep my commitments and promises to those I work with.	0.676	7.242	42.408
LBSF3: Interpersonal Sensitivity
24. I have an awareness and ability to recognize the feelings and emotions of others and use these abilities to make decisions while interacting with them.	0.712
25. I recognize my own emotions and feelings and can manage them.	0.695
26. I encourage my team members to look for “out-of-box solutions” and take risky approaches in challenging work scenarios/situations.	0.638
31. I ensure the team members are well rewarded for their creative work in our project.	0.643	5.874	48.282
LBSF4: (Mentoring Relationships & Empowerment
3. I provide support, training & opportunities for my team members to adapt to the new project environment and mentor relationships to grow to perform better.	0.698
22. I encourage & support my project team to adopt change management when required.	0.698	4.869	53.151
LBSF5: Inspire-Motivation & Visionary)
1. I inspire and motivate the project team to work together to achieve project goal/s.	0.727
4. I discuss the big picture and describe what we aspire to achieve as a team.	0.562
32. I have the flexibility in making decisions	0.691	4.475	57.626
LBSF6: Motivation -Visionary and Promote Relationships
5. I encourage & motivate team members to achieve more than the agreed project goal/s.	0.550
9. I encourage team members to solve problems together.	0.647
12. I encourage team members to share their thoughts/dreams for the future.	0.762	4.351	61.977
LBSF7: Self-Management
23. I am comfortable & self-confident in receiving feedback and learning from it.	0.824
27. I keep my negative emotions and feelings in check.	0.781	3.943	65.920
LBSF8: Coaching and Team Empowerment
15. I suggest ways to improve team performance.	0.717
19. I always look for new ways to do the job and challenge my project team members to look into how we work.	0.645	3.321	69.241
LBSF9: Promote Relationships
7. I encourage team members to exchange information with one another.	0.711	3.126	72.367
Rotations converged at 15 iterations.
CMSF1: Communication Effectiveness
1. I keep the purpose of communication well-defined & meaningful.	0.680
2. I communicate clearly, and precisely without any ambiguity.	0.816
3. I understand the communication from others involved in the project.	0.784
4. I communicate appropriately with different audiences.	0.613
5. I ensure the information is current, relevant, correct, meaningful, and straightforward.	0.579
6. I use proper methods/media/channels for communicating the information to project team members and internal/external stakeholders.	0.714
7. I achieved the expected outcome/s from our communication in general.	0.655
8. I keep open and honest communication with all project teams and stakeholders.	0.507	38.548	38.548
CMSF2: Relationship Management
3. I use effective communication/tactics for persuasion.	0.713
5. I negotiate in resolving disagreements and collaboratively develop a resolution.	0.722
6. I build and maintain relationships with others, work toward shared goals, and create group synergy in pursuing collective goals.	0.808	10.467	49.014
CMSF3: Conflicts Management
3. I strive to encourage all parties to communicate willingly.	0.730
4. I resolve conflict amicably.	0.815
6. I helped solve relationship issues and problems that emerged on the project.	0.667	8.429	57.444
CMSF4: Communication Willingness
3 I encourage project team members to share events and changes willingly that may affect the project.	0.788
4 I follow a trust mechanism in the process of communication.	0.721	6.772	64.216

Table 4. Key success factors.

Key Success Factors	Standardized Coefficient (β)	R- Squared		Adjusted R- Squared		p-value
Relationship Management	0.375	0.313		0.302		0.000
Self-Management	0.285	0.277		0.215		0.003
Leading by Example	0.251	0.285		0.274		0.011
Interpersonal Sensitivity and Encouragement	0.191	0.188		0.175		0.041
Model Summary
Mode	R	R Square	Adusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
1	.750^a	0.563	0.534	0.27121
ANOVA^a		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	5.781	4	1.445	19.648	<.001^b
	Residual	4.487	61	0.074
	Total	10.268	65

^aPredictors: (Constant), Communication-Relationship Key Factors, Leadership Key Success Factors

^bDependent Variable: Project Success

^cPredictors: (Constant), Leading by Example, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Self-Management, Relationship Management

Table 5. Leadership styles/practices for different countries

Country	Leadership Styles/Practices	Context	References
U.K.	1. Important traits identified: Good communication skills Strategic Vision Understanding of Business (Individuals exhibiting high levels of integrity, vision, and communication skills, including charisma and inspiration. These are ranked high in the industry.) 2. Leadership styles for inter-organizational leaders promoting sustainability practices in the U.K. construction industry. Identified leadership styles promoting sustainability: Strategic – Leaders to influence the development of sustainability strategies. Visionary (Transformational and Charismatic) – Leaders create a strategic vision to achieve high levels of cohesion, commitment, trust, and motivation for achieving high-performance outcomes. Charismatic – Leaders are good at shaping the values for others. Transformational – Leaders’ influence followers’ morals, emotional and cognitive behaviors Comments: Strategic leadership style was identified as the most commonly and dominating identified style.	Research was conducted in the U.K. Construction Industry to identify the skill gaps in leadership to improve leadership development. Investigation was performed to identify leaders promoting sustainability in the U.K. Construction Industry	CIOB, (2008); Opoku et al., (2015)
China	1.Leadership styles are more relationship -motivated than their counterparts in the U.K., attributed to cultural differences. 2. Management styles are less task oriented. 3. Transformational and Transactional leadership styles are generally used on construction sites. 4. Project managers strongly focus on monitoring and control, adequacy of planning and time management. 5. Combination of Authoritarian, Paternalistic and Cooperating styles Comments: In the Chinese construction industry, the socio-cultural examination is relevant to adopted leadership styles in the industry.	Investigation performed on the leadership styles of construction managers in Hong Kong and compared with construction managers’ styles from Western cultures. Leadership Styles in China investigated based on P-M leadership theory. Northeast China	Rowlinson et al., (1993); Fang & Liu, (2014)
USA	1. High task-oriented leadership style identified 2. Less experienced managers were indicated to be more task-oriented than more experienced managers who showed an inclination toward relationship-oriented behaviors. Comments: 1. In general, Western leaders focused on: building teamwork, interpersonal bonds, dignity, and trust. 2. Highly entrepreneurial and risk-taking leaders. 3. Transformational 4. Transactional leadership	South Florida A study performed on construction managers in the South Florida construction industry Investigation performed on relationships between Construction manager’s leadership styles and project success in the U.S. construction industry.	Panthi et al., (2009); Parson, (2020)
South Africa	1.Democratic, Transformational and Transactional are the leading leadership styles in the construction industry. Comments: 1. A culture of acceptance, compassion, and tolerance is prevalent in the construction industry, attributed to South African cultural influence. 2. In addition, leadership participation is mostly shared with the team members rather than invested in one person.	Investigation of construction professionals in the South African construction industry	Emere et al., (2018)
Sweden and Denmark	1.High transformational leadership was found to be a central aspect of safety-promoting leadership style at the construction sites. 2. Passive/avoidant leadership practices were found to be a central aspect of poor leadership at the construction site safety. Comments: The transformational leadership behavior was higher among site managers in Sweden than in Denmark, indicating national cultural context- may be due to antecedent to safety leadership in Sweden.	Leadership practice’s impact on site safety was studied using mixed methods of investigation for Sweden and Demark construction sites	Grill et al., (2019)
UAE	1.Transformational leadership style is popular at construction sites. 2. Participative or Consultative leadership styles are used frequently by managers to achieve high performance for their organizations – may be due to cultural influence in the construction industry.	Investigation of leadership behaviors in the construction industry	Dubrin, (2004); Youssef, (2000)
Indonesia and Nigeria	Task-oriented style Autocratic Leadership Style	Leadership styles prevalent in the construction industry	Andi et al., 2004); Oke, (2010)

Table 6. Top ranked leadership behavior practices for project managers.

Leadership Behaviour Practices	Item	Mean	SD	Ranking
Work hard to achieve goals	LB14	4.71	0.46	1
Keep commitments & promises	LB16	4.53	0.53	2
Setting a high standard for performance	LB11	4.48	0.56	3
Set a good example of behaviors	LB8	4.32	0.59	4
Build and maintain relationships to work toward shared goals	RM6	4.48	0.53	5
Negotiate to resolve disagreements and create collaborative environment.	RM5	4.24	0.70	6
Comfortable to receive feedback.	LB23	4.21	0.85	7
Recognise own feelings & emotions.	LB25	4.17	0.67	8
Use effective communication for persuasion.	RM3	4.12	0.85	9
Awareness to recognize the feelings of others.	LB24	4.11	0.75	10
Team members are rewarded for their creative work	LB31	4.08	0.75	11
Keep emotions and feelings in check	LB27	3.85	0.81	12
Encourage team to into out of box solutions	LB26	3.71	0.91	13

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Data availability statement

Research survey data (confidential) is kept with the University of Southern Queensland, Queensland, Australia.