Leadership and management balance for rehabilitating distressed construction projects

ABSTRACT

The objective of this dissertation is to identify a recommended balance between

leadership and management activities of a project manager who aims to rehabilitate a distressed construction project.

The data for this research was collected from 338 construction project professionals belonging to fifteen large construction companies who participated in leadership seminars originated by professors from Arizona State University. The seminars contained various leadership games and exercises that were designed specifically to collect data about leadership and management actions taken by the project managers.

The data from one of the games, called “Project from Hell” (PFH), was used in this research. The PFH game presents the participants with a set of fifty-two actions cards written on a deck of game cards and asks them to select the ten action cards they perceive as being most effective for turning a troubled construction project around. Each suit of the deck represents a different category of actions, focusing on either Traditional Leadership (Hearts), Best Value Leadership (Diamonds), Traditional Management (Spades), or Micro- Management (Clubs).

Statistical analysis of the results revealed that only sixteen of the fifty-two actions cards were selected with statistically significant consistency. Of these sixteen actions, six actions were form Traditional Management actions, five were Traditional Leadership actions, and five were Best Value Leadership actions. This rendered a recommended balance of 62% leadership activities vs. 38% management activities for project managers to rehabilitate distressed construction projects. It was also found that the same balance is recommended for the normal condition construction projects. The calculated weighted

i

scores for ranking the sixteen effective leadership and management actions revealed that the five Traditional Management actions are the top-most effective actions. This demonstrates the importance of stand still management actions in rehabilitating in trouble construction projects

The findings were converted into easy to implement guidelines about how project managers can change habits to increase their effectiveness by focusing on the right type of actions.

A generalization of the methodology for interpreting the results of any study based on selection of activities, was also developed.