The Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Project Managers’ Competencies, and Transformational Leadership on Project Success: An Empirical Perspective

Project stakeholders always strive for a successful project, hence there is growing concern about the factors that influence project success. Although the success of a project is influenced by various factors, project managers play a very important role. This study aims to examine the relationship and impact of construction project managers’ emotional intelligence (EI), managerial competencies, and transformational leadership style on project success. A total of 107 Pakistani construction firms were studied with a view to measuring the effects of these variables on the overall performance of construction projects. The results show that project managers with high emotional intelligence who bear the desired competencies and exhibit transformational leadership behavior are effective leaders and ensure higher success in projects than their counterparts. The findings will assist project sponsors in selecting the appropriate project managers for their projects.

[1]  D. Gehring,et al.  Applying Traits Theory of Leadership to Project Management , 2007, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[2]  Nicholas M.P. Clarke,et al.  Emotional Intelligence and Its Relationship to Transformational Leadership and Key Project Manager Competences , 2010 .

[3]  Bruce J. Avolio,et al.  Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead , 2002 .

[4]  Naresh K. Malhotra,et al.  Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation , 1993 .

[5]  S. Davis,et al.  Investigating the Impact of Project Managers’ Emotional Intelligence on Their Interpersonal Competence , 2011 .

[6]  Angelika Bayer,et al.  Working With Emotional Intelligence , 2016 .

[7]  Alfred E. Thal,et al.  Successful project managers: an exploratory study into the impact of personality , 2010, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[8]  Gerrard Macintosh,et al.  Personality, motives, and conflict strategies in everyday service encounters , 2008 .

[9]  R. Müller,et al.  Matching the project manager’s leadership style to project type , 2007 .

[10]  Beverley Lloyd-Walker,et al.  Emotional intelligence (EI) capabilities training: can it develop EI in project teams? , 2008 .

[11]  E. Kelloway,et al.  Transformational leadership and emotional intelligence: an exploratory study , 2000 .

[12]  A. Dainty,et al.  Examining the role of transformational leadership of portfolio managers in project performance , 2013 .

[13]  D. Mcclelland Testing for competence rather than for "intelligence". , 1973, The American psychologist.

[14]  David Edgar,et al.  E-commerce and mobile application in the business globalisation: e-business, SMEs and risk, towards a research agenda , 2009 .

[15]  William Leban,et al.  Linking emotional intelligence abilities and transformational leadership styles , 2004 .

[16]  Diana Adler,et al.  Using Multivariate Statistics , 2016 .

[17]  Ofer Zwikael,et al.  Evaluation of Models for Forecasting the Final Cost of a Project , 2000 .

[18]  S Strohmeier,et al.  Development of interpersonal skills for senior project managers , 1992 .

[19]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[20]  Anne Nederveen Pieterse,et al.  Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behavior : The moderating role of psychological empowerment , 2009 .

[21]  P. Chinowsky,et al.  Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Behavior in Construction Executives , 2006 .

[22]  Karen A. Brown,et al.  Developing Project Management Skills: A Service Learning Approach , 2000 .

[23]  José-Rodrigo Córdoba-Pachón Developing project management skills , 2009 .

[24]  Hans Georg Gemünden,et al.  Retaining project management competence — Antecedents and consequences , 2016 .

[25]  Andrew W Gale How to know what: setting the project management competency agenda , 1999 .

[26]  Bassam Baroudi,et al.  Project management education: The human skills imperative , 2008 .

[27]  M. Higgs,et al.  Assessing leadership styles and organisational context , 2005 .

[28]  Gilbert A. Churchill A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs , 1979 .

[29]  Irja Hyväri Project management effectiveness in project-oriented business organizations , 2006 .

[30]  N. Ashkanasy,et al.  Rallying the Troops or Beating the Horses? How Project-Related Demands Can Lead to Either High-Performance or Abusive Supervision , 2015 .

[31]  Robert Y. Cavana,et al.  Applied Business research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods , 2001 .

[32]  Stephen A. Leybourne The Changing Bias of Project Management Research: A Consideration of the Literatures and an Application of Extant Theory , 2007 .

[33]  Rodney Turner,et al.  Relationships Between Leadership and Success in Different Types of Project Complexities , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

[34]  Abdul Kadir Othman,et al.  The Influence of Work Motivation on Emotional Intelligence and Team Effectiveness Relationship , 2009 .

[35]  James C. Anderson,et al.  STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN PRACTICE: A REVIEW AND RECOMMENDED TWO-STEP APPROACH , 1988 .

[36]  Li-Ren Yang,et al.  The association among project manager's leadership style, teamwork and project success , 2011 .

[37]  C. Stough,et al.  Examining the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level managers , 2002 .

[38]  Steve Rowlinson,et al.  Leadership style of construction managers in Hong Kong , 1993 .

[39]  Riza Yosia Sunindijo,et al.  Project manager skills for improving project performance , 2015 .

[40]  Stephen O. Ogunlana,et al.  Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Styles in Construction Project Management , 2007 .

[41]  George Zillante,et al.  Identification and evaluation of the key social competencies for Chinese construction project managers , 2013 .

[42]  S E Crawford Directions for the future. , 1983, Journal of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama.

[43]  J. Rodney Turner,et al.  The Project Manager's Leadership Style as a Success Factor on Projects: A Literature Review , 2005 .

[44]  Catherine M. Beise,et al.  Do project managers practice what they preach, and does it matter to project success? , 2010 .

[45]  Sophie Brière,et al.  Competencies of project managers in international NGOs: Perceptions of practitioners , 2015 .

[46]  Stéphanie Missonier,et al.  The project manager cannot be a hero anymore! Understanding critical competencies in project-based organizations from a multilevel approach , 2015 .

[47]  Wei Zhang,et al.  The relationship between project manager leadership style and project success , 2009 .

[48]  Niels G. Noorderhaven,et al.  Transformational leadership and project success: The mediating role of team-building , 2016 .

[49]  Mark Winter,et al.  Directions for future research in project management: The main findings of a UK government-funded research network , 2006 .

[50]  K. Davis Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success , 2014 .

[51]  Teck-Chai Lau,et al.  Education Quality Process Model and Its Influence on Students' Perceived Service Quality , 2010 .

[52]  Sm Badi,et al.  The effect of leader emotional intelligence on leader–follower chemistry: a study of construction project managers , 2015 .

[53]  Gregory J. Skulmoski,et al.  Information Systems Project Manager Soft Competencies: A Project-Phase Investigation , 2010 .

[54]  Syed Muhammad Javed Iqbal,et al.  Leadership Competency: A Tool for Project Success , 2014 .

[55]  Vittal S. Anantatmula,et al.  Social and Behavioral Influences on Team Process , 2010 .

[56]  Victor Dulewicz,et al.  Do Project Managers’ Leadership Competencies Contribute to Project Success? , 2008 .

[57]  유화자 기독교 사역과 Leadership , 1997 .

[58]  R. Müller,et al.  Leadership competency profiles of successful project managers , 2010 .

[59]  P. Jordan,et al.  Manager emotional intelligence and project success: The mediating role of job satisfaction and trust , 2016 .

[60]  Dov Dvir,et al.  Projects and Project Managers: The Relationship between Project Managers' Personality, Project Types, and Project Success , 2006 .

[61]  Kevin B. Lowe,et al.  Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic review of the mlq literature , 1996 .

[62]  Abraham Carmeli,et al.  The relationship between emotional intelligence and work attitudes, behavior and outcomes: An examination among senior managers , 2003 .

[63]  B. Bass,et al.  The Bass handbook of leadership : theory, research, and managerial applications , 2008 .

[64]  S. Tamer Cavusgil,et al.  Decomposing the effects of market knowledge competence in new product export , 2000 .