3. Leadership in a construction project
Because of the importance of the leadership in all kinds of group action, there is a
considerable volume of theory and research concerning it. Leadership is the the ability
to influence the behaviour of others, in particular, the followers.In general management
literature, there are several leadership theories that help to understand the concept
of leadership. For example, trait approach and skills approach put the premise that
leadership can be learned as opposed to the old Great Man theory which sees that
leaders are born rather than made. On the other hand, theories such as situational
leadership and contingency approaches suggest to leaders how they should behave
based on the demands of a particular situation. For example, Hersey and Blanchard
(1969) describe four leadership styles such as supporting, delegating, coaching and
directing, that a leader should choose, depending on the level of willingness and the
ability of the followers. Fiedler’s (1967) contingency model presents successful
leadership conditioned by three factors: the leader is well accepted by the group, the
task is well defined, and the leader has at least resource and/or position power. John
Adair’s (1973) leadership model offers three dimensions to leadership; addressing
task, group and individual needs. All in all, the general management leadership
theories lead to suggest that a leader needs great sensitivity to the group being led and
the nature of the task being undertaken and needs to be sufficiently flexible to change
styles as appropriate.