Identification

This chapter discusses how leaders are identified in projects. As leaders are also appointed to teams in organizations, the chapter begins with a discussion on the nature of team leadership in organizations. It describes one of the models used for explaining team leadership and its application in an organizational context. The authors then turn to competencies of appointed leaders in projects, and they discuss how leaders are spotted in organizations with examples from multinational organizations. Following this, they turn their attention to how leaders are identified in projects. A research into identification, carried out as part of the balanced leadership research, is then presented. The chapter closes with a summary and some questions for reflection.

A Theory of Balanced Leadership

This chapter describes balanced leadership theory. It starts by discussing the need for theories for good practical work. A positioning follows, which locates balanced leadership as a middle-range theory between substantive and grand theories. The chapter continues with some of the required information to make sense of the theory. This includes the philosophical stance, which is critical realism, and the theoretical lens, which is realist social theory and its morphogenetic cycle. A detailed description of the theory follows. This description addresses the theory’s constituting variables (the what), the macro- and micro-processes that explain the flow of activities (the how), the internal functioning and its relation to contingency theory (the why), and finally, the limitations and areas of application where the theory holds (the where/when/who). Various cross-references are made to the subsequent chapters in this book.

Balanced Leadership

This book describes balanced leadership in projects. Based on an award winning global program of research studies on leadership reality in projects, this book shows that leadership changes constantly and is not as static as existing literature may suggests. Instead, leadership in projects is dynamically shifted between project managers, individual team members, and subteams, all balanced in situational contingency. Their leadership may be exercised through a vertical, horizontal, shared, or distributed leadership approach. However, it is balanced leadership that ensures the best suitable leadership approach is used in any given situation. For that, the book presents a project-specific leadership approach called horizontal leadership, a theory of balanced leadership, and the five building blocks that enable balanced leadership. These are nomination of team members, identification of potential leaders, selection and empowerment of leaders, empowered leadership and its governance, as well as leadership transition. Emphasis is also given to the coordination of these building blocks through the socio-cognitive space, shared by project manager and team. The book finishes with three real-life case studies that exemplify how balanced leadership unfolds in projects.

The Way Ahead

This short chapter puts the book’s theme in the context of contemporary thinking, which perceives leadership as a shared experience among members of a community. It then anticipates and discusses some of the critiques that might come up while reading this volume, including the development of leaders in identifying situations for and training the use of balanced leadership. Subsequently, the chapter addresses some recent research results that show the pros and cons of balanced leadership in different situations, such as football teams and social media departments. That charts the path forward for future studies. Finally the chapter suggests dialogue and experience exchanges among the different leadership roles discussed in this volume to build a balanced leadership culture for the benefit of the individuals and the organization.

Selection and Empowerment

This chapter addresses the selection and empowerment event in balanced leadership; that is, when a team member or a subteam is selected and subsequently authorized to temporarily lead the project. The chapter introduces selection and empowerment concepts, first from a general management and then from a project management literature perspective. Then the chapter drills down to the selection and empowerment practices found in projects. The assessment of these practices leads to five dimensions that make up the empowerment event, which manifests itself in four different empowerment types. Each type is described in terms of the profile of its empowerment dimensions. Together, the empowerment types form a career development framework for future leaders.

Leadership Transition

This chapter addresses the transition of leadership authority. This event occurs after an empowered leader’s assignment comes to an end. Leadership transition starts with a reflection and decision on the compatibility of the role’s conditions with the empowered leader’s actual behavior. In addition, internal and external contingencies are taken into account to decide on the continuation, change, or termination of the empowered leader’s assignment. Finally, to improve future leader selection and empowerment, a decision is made to abandon, change, or continue the criteria for leader selection in similar situations. The chapter is framed through transition theory and uses the morphogenetic cycle to explain the decision-making processes. The chapter ends with a model on leadership transition in balanced leadership.

Balanced Leadership Case Study

This case study discusses the application of balanced leadership in Transport for New South Wales in Australia (Transport). It reports on three aspects of balanced leadership in Transport: how decisions are made regarding projects and programs; how leadership shifts between the vertical leader (project or program manager) and horizontal leader (subject matter experts in teams); and elements of socio-cognitive space that support the transition between vertical and horizontal leadership. The predominant methodology used to deliver programs in Transport was found to be agile, and all the programs delivered from the unit where the interviewees were located were aimed at supporting the creation of value from big data. The unit managing programs in this organization was not fully involved in implementing projects in the programs, creating an additional level of leadership where some tasks were also undertaken by project team members in a vendor’s organization.

Horizontal Leadership and Its Scenarios

This chapter addresses horizontal leadership and its scenarios. It starts by looking at what horizontal leadership is, and how horizontal leaders execute their leadership task in the context of balanced leadership. Then, it describes scenarios that occur when horizontal leaders are nominated, identified, selected, and empowered by the project manager, and when they are assigned to lead a project task. The chapter also highlights the specific aspects of leadership distribution between horizontal leaders and project managers to identify the project managers’ leadership style, and the nature of decisions made by both project managers and horizontal leaders to deliver the project. The chapter concludes with some scenarios to illustrate the types of decisions and tasks delegated to horizontal leaders.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the background of the book and the motivation to write it. Moreover it describes the book’s contribution to knowledge as being the first book on leadership approaches solely found in project settings. Then it defines the main concepts and terms used throughout this volume. It starts with a definition of leadership approaches, such as vertical, horizontal, team-based, and balanced leadership approaches, then it introduces the popular leadership styles used within these leadership approaches. This includes transactional, transformational, autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire, as well shared and distributed leadership styles. The chapter ends with a short overview of the book’s chapters.

Coordination through the Socio-Cognitive Space

This chapter addresses the coordination between the project manager and project team members during balanced leadership. This coordination takes place through a socio-cognitive space (SCS), consisting of the joint understanding between the project manager and project team about (a) the shared mental model for project execution (i.e., skill needs, ways to collaborate, and the understanding of the context of the project); (b) the currently empowered leader; and (c) the level of efficacy of the empowered leader. Then the content of the three SCS dimensions in projects with different project management methodologies is reviewed. These differences uncover the ontological differences underlying balanced leadership in different types of projects. The chapter finishes with a quantitative assessment of horizontal leadership’s relative impact on project success and its mediation by the SCS, showing the relative importance of the three concepts for project performance.