7.0 Conclusion
The study examined the prevalent leadership style, to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and the different leadership styles adopted by construction project managers in New Zealand and the UK. The study found that transformational leadership style is frequently employed across both sample frames. Significant positive relationships were found between project managers’ emotional intelligence and the likelihood that they would employ a transformational leadership style to achieve effective team and project management. The emotional intelligence constructs; use of emotions and self-management were especially relevant to improve the performance of project managers adopting the TL style. Social skills and relationship management through emotional appraisal of others are essential to project managers to manage interactions to improved team working environment. The findings of this study are not without limitations, including the subjective nature of participants’ self-measurement of their own emotional intelligence and leadership style. Similarly, the assessments of leadership capabilities were possibly subject to informant bias due to participants’ desire to provide desirable answers. Steps were taken to reduce the possibility of social desirability bias. Harman’s one factor test was conducted to ensure the constructs were not significantly affected by common method variance. It is important to note that the findings relate to the sampled respondents only, because the respondents do not exactly mirror the population from which they are drawn, which raises questions about the generalization of the results. Care must be taken when applying the recommendations from this study in different countries and cultural backgrounds.
Despite these limitations, the research findings have the potential to assist with the identification and selection of people who would not only excel in project management, but would also be more likely to get the best performance from their construction teams. This improved performance could include financial performance, organisational commitment, job satisfaction, safety culture and innovation. Encouraging transformational leaders in the construction industry will help to foster collaborative working relationships, encourage a team approach to problem solving and a willingness to seek cost-effective and innovative solutions for the benefit of the individual, team, client and the industry as a whole.
