Project Team Leadership

1. Project Team Leadership Dilemmas of Coordination and Boundaries

2. Orientation • Examine ways Team Leaders understand and deal with dilemmas of leading projects in practice • The Nature of Project Teams and the Primacy of the project or task • Why Project teams face dilemmas • Dilemmas of coordination and boundary spanning

3. Project Leadership: A Functional Approach • Zaccaro et al, interpretation of integrative team processes as a form of social problem solving • Team leadership a means of supporting team’s problem-solving efforts • Group problem solving a powerful way of setting up integration mechanisms within the team • Surveyed team leadership from perspective of what leaders do • Functional or ‘action team’ approach - defining characteristics are observable and plannable activities

4. Team Leadership & Social Problem-Solving • Emphasizes interdependencies of individuals in the team • Research emphasizes differentiation of roles, not way roles require integration & coordination • Three-stage sequence of functional activities in social-problem solving – • Solution finding; solution selection; & solution implementation • Internal Coordination Processes • differing roles and responsibilities allocated to individuals • issues of coordination within team across boundaries • Shared mental models; collective information processing & team meta-cognition

5. Information search & structuring Acquiring information Organizing & evaluating information Feedback & control Information use in problem solving Identifying needs & requirements Planning & coordinating Communicating information Managing personal resources Obtaining & allocating personnel resources Developing personnel resources Utilizing & monitoring personnel resources Managing material resources Obtaining & allocating material resources Maintaining material resources Utilizing & monitoring material resources Leader Performance FunctionsLeader Behaviour Dimensions Source: Fleishman et al, (1991) - in Zaccaro et al (2001)

6. Implications of Functionalist Approach • Emphasizes rational and observable behaviours • Emotional reactions unhelpful for team effectiveness & offer opportunity for leader-shaped protocols for behaviour • Suggests how rational approach leads to effectiveness through alignment of individual and task goals • Allocation of roles and shaped behavioural norms facilitate solution search, selection and implementation • Assumes initial problem well defined and stable enough to permit these processes

7. Hauschildt’s Innovation Leadership • Product champions and project leadership roles: Power promoter; Technology promoter; Process promoter • Importance of boundary spanning roles • Environmental complexity results in distribution of leadership activities and types within a project • Dilemma facing innovation leader- balance between behavioural needs of group and focus on formal project management tools. (Task/people dilemma)

8. Self-Managing Work Teams • Manz & Sims model involves self-leadership or super leadership of each team member • Super-leadership - process of leading people to lead themselves: Developing positive & motivating thought patterns; Personal goal setting; Observation & self-evaluation Self-reinforcement • Role of leaders to lead others to lead themselves or to develop self-leadership energy within each subordinate • Leadership is distributed among the team members

9. Super leaders • Conventional leadership types • The Strong Man – bullying & uncaring • Transactors – task-oriented • Visionary Leaders – vulnerable to dilemmas of succession • Super leadership – participation & involvement • distributed leadership and idea of team as collective leader • Distributed leadership- way of dealing with dilemmas of resource management and conflicting interests

10. Group Maturity & Development Process Performing (Adapted from Tuckman & Jensen 1977) Norming Storming Return to independence Forming Adjourning Group disbands Self evaluation Positive feelings Dependence / Interdependence Successful performance Openness & helpfulness Flexible roles Debate & acceptance Consensus Trust Cooperation Accepted leadership & standards set Independence Disagreement over priorities Struggle for leadership Tension & hostility Clique formation Confusion & uncertainty Establishing rules Defining goals Assessing situation & others

11. Summary • Dominant maps of team leadership reflect a rational and functionalist perspective • Consequential dilemmas of coordination and boundary management not highlighted • Dilemmas need disentangling from complexity of individual interests, emotions and capabilities • Zaccaro et al. indicated how lack of coordination resolved by team problem-solving efforts and development of integrating mechanisms

12. Summary (1) • Project approach mapsteam behaviours in rational terms; it assumes project task is unambiguous and divisible into non-interacting tasks • Approach overlooks importance of behavioural (’non-rational’) team issues • Boundary spanning role helps define leadership (team members protected from such uncertainties within & outside the team boundaries) • Distributed leadership is a way of dealing with dilemmas of resource management and conflict of individuals’ interests