Leading and Participating in High-Performing Project

Principles of Leadership

Leadership happens in every aspect of life from the playground, to sports teams, social groups, businesses, and government. As DuBois (2015) states, “Leadership is about providing guidance for a group. In leadership, it is important to not only achieve good business results, but to also create a culture where people are empowered and inspired by a common purpose” (p. 32). A successful culture and project is the result of a leader who effectively uses a variety of leadership traits and styles to guide, inspire, and manage teams. According to Sheard, throughout a project’s lifecycle everyone on the team will occupy a formal or informal leadership position. It is these informal social leaders that help to transform groups to effective teams. Without effective leadership organizations stagnate and lose their way (2001).

In the literature that DuBois (2015) reviews, certain leadership traits positively affect project success. Organization, managerial competence, emotional competence, openness to experiences, communication, inspiration, investigative, enterprising, and entrepreneurialism are the strongest influencers of success. DuBois states that competent, organized leadership instills confidence, builds good relationships, and a greater sense of purpose amongst team members (2015). Clear and frequent communications is an attribute that is seen in project success. Effective project leaders are successful with combinations of technical skills, vision, ethics, and the ability to lead change.

Leadership style is what drives a manager’s rate of success or failure (Cunningham, 2015). Cunningham (2015) looked at six popular leadership styles in three different industries looking for commonality in the industry along with preferred methods from industry to industry. Research pointed to preferred styles across industries and only slightly vary by industry. Leadership styles researched were coaching, strategic, laissez-faire,...