Leadership in Technology Project Management

This chapter addresses project managers’ leadership styles, mainly from the perspective of technology projects. It starts by defining and outlining the need for leadership, and then describes the historical schools and the recent schools of leadership theory. Subsequently the focus turns to current leadership research in project management, and its related theories. Subsequently, the personality profiles of successful project managers in different types of projects are presented. The chapter ends with some managerial and theoretical implications, as well as scholarly challenges for further research and future developments in this area.

Building Trust in Networked Environments

As organizations grow and become multi-national, distributed work, that is, work where members are located in different sites, cities, or countries usually follows (Meyerson, Weick, & Kramer, 1996; Jarvenpaa & Leidner 1999; Zolin & Hinds 2002; Hossain & Wigand 2004; Panteli 2005). Yet such teams and groups have fewer opportunities to build social networks as is common in traditional groups, such as time spent together and frequent informal interaction. The “paradox of trust” in distributed work then, is that while trust is a need-to-have asset for distributed work groups, in particular for knowledge work, it is also difficult to foster due to the lack of physical co-location (Handy, 1995). This chapter argues that one way to deal with the paradox is to recognize the importance of trust as generated through individuals that have trustful ties that cross central boundaries, that is, trust brokers. Based on a relational approach to trust in groups as well as empirical studies of distributed work groups, we argue that trust brokers can help to establish trust quickly and make the group operate in more robust and sustainable ways.

The Language of Leaders

Virtual teams and their leaders are key players in global organizations. Using teams of workers dispersed temporally and geographically has changed the way people work in groups and redefined the nature of teamwork. Emergent leadership issues in computer-mediated communication are vital today because of the increasing prevalence of the virtual organization, the flattening of organizational structures, and the corresponding interest in managing virtual groups and teams. This chapter examines the communication behaviors of participants in two different case studies to determine if number, length, and content of messages are sufficient criteria to identify emergent leaders in asynchronous and synchronous environments. The methodology used can be embedded in collaborative virtual environments as a technology for identifying potential leaders in organizational and educational environments.

The Application of Blended Action Learning to Leadership Development

This chapter describes the use of blended action learning in a professional development context. Action learning is a process that involves small groups of learners working on issues or problems they face in their every day work with the support of a facilitator. Although action learning sets most often meet faceto- face, ICT is increasingly being used to support or in some cases replace traditional set meetings, thus providing a ‘blended’ approach. Action learning is a potentially empowering process that encourages reflection and questioning and promotes shifts in workplace practice. The role of the action learning facilitator appears to be a key element in the success of this approach. The purpose of this chapter is to describe a case study of a blended action learning process designed to support leadership development and discuss the subsequent implications and emerging trends.

Online Networks can Support the Rise of Virtual Leaders

The actor network theory (ANT) as first proponed by Latour (1984) describes the emergence of sociotechnical systems through interaction patterns between network participants as a means of harnessing technological and human factors. This research extended ANT to investigate how self-selected leaders spontaneously emerged in a virtual environment, using the online medium to gain legitimacy and coverage. Thematic analysis of online postings and interviews outlined how participants: 1) tested and developed virtual leadership competencies for the first time; 2) seized the opportunity to raise their personal profile even when geographically isolated; 3) made purposeful process and content contributions and; 4) developed online networking competencies. Since emergent leadership is simultaneously enabling of and enabled by acts of virtual communication, it is important for organisations to learn to identify virtual leaders. Virtual leaders may rise and contribute to the organisation through communication channels other than those typically used by conventional leaders – hence potentially requiring a different set of communication and network building skills.

Assessment Strategies for Servant Leadership Practice in the Virtual Organization

Leadership in the virtual organization presents unique opportunities and challenges for the manager. Some researchers consider management in the virtual organization to be comprised mainly of challenges while others see it as the opportunity to realize competitive advantage in the global marketplace. Several leadership approaches offer interesting options for the manager within the context of the virtual organization. One standout approach that has gained increasing popularity over the last 30 years is servant leadership in which the leader is servant first. Those managers in virtual organizations who have committed to a practice of servant leadership recognize the need for assessment instruments to help them understand the level of perceived servant leadership characteristics among organizational members under their guidance. This understanding acts as a foundation for training within this context. With this in mind, Laub’s Organizational Leadership Assessment (OLA) offers a reliable survey instrument accepted by the servant leadership practice community. The OLA is easily administered to virtual organization members as a set of Web pages and can be used in conjunction with complementary, third-party data sets such as the World Values Survey database. Future directions for the assessment of servant leadership in the virtual organization include the potential modification of the OLA, as well as the creation of survey instruments to be used in conjunction with it.

E-Leadership Styles for Global Virtual Teams

With time, an increasing number of organizations deploy global virtual teams (GVTs) in an effort to respond to the demands and the competitive nature of the global business arena. Leadership, a factor that is arguably central to the successful functioning of collocated teams, is much altered in view of the virtual backdrop, and thus, management practices, when referring to GVTs’ operation and effectiveness, have to be re-addressed. This chapter explores the contribution of a leader-coordinator in GVTs and – by drawing upon interviews with staff that participate in intra-organizational virtual teams of an eminent global operator – it discusses leadership approaches suitable for those teams. In addition, this chapter attempts to unveil and discuss the personal values that drive ordinary virtual actors to emergently lead their teams. Ultimately, the chapter suggests e-leadership styles which could be of foremost value to current and future virtual teams and virtual organizations.

Shared Leadership Meets Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are generally widely dispersed by geography, and also often by culture, language and time. They are usually comprised of highly skilled professionals and are brought together in order to achieve strategic organizational goals or to work on complex projects. They do not normally meet face-to-face but, rather, build and maintain relationships using various types of communication and information sharing technologies. With the continued increase in virtual teams a new leadership model becomes critical since traditional hierarchical models might not be able to facilitate the results that the organization needs to compete in a globalized economy. The authors suggest that shared leadership (e.g., Pearce & Conger, 2003), the dynamic allocation of leadership responsibility based on the expertise of the team member and the needs of the team or project, might be the solution to more effectively creating productive, balanced teams in a virtual workplace. This chapter is a brief exploration of the shared leadership literature as it pertains to organizing, leading and participating on a virtual team.

Managing in the Time of Virtualness

Virtual teams are increasingly being utilized by organizations in order to bring together far-flung expertise using collaborative technologies rather than physical relocation. While many organizations have been quick to utilize technology to enable this new virtual team structure they have been slower in recognizing the needed complementary shifts in management practices surrounding such teams. This chapter seeks to offer advice to managers in this new time of “virtualness.” Interviews were conducted with a variety of individuals engaged in virtual team activities asking about communication practices, performance, change management, and leadership. The authors further probed about what technologies were in use by teams and what areas of the team processes could be improved. Finally, they asked the participants to draw distinctions between their views on effective practices of face-to-face teams and effective practices of virtual teams. From this interview data, insights are offered into social and managerial issues that drive virtual team performance.

Enhancing Virtual Learning Team Performance

Debate abounds over whether a virtual team is an effective substitute for traditional face-to-face team and can sustain itself. Drawing upon literature on leadership, trust, computer-mediated communication, and teams, the authors propose a theoretical model of online learning team effectiveness. A quasi-experiment was conducted to empirically test the impact of team trust, propensity to trust, leadership effectiveness, and communication frequency on the effectiveness of virtual learning teams and team satisfaction and performance. The results support the majority of the authors’ hypotheses. Trust serves as a mediating role in the relationship between leadership effectiveness and team satisfaction and team performance. Practical implications and future trends are discussed at the end of the chapter.