Transformational Style: The Highly Effective Leadership Style in Thai Construction Industry

In Thailand, the construction industry grown quickly especially in the infrastructure sector since the demand of the population on infrastructure is increasing. Construction is a project based industry and its success depends on several factors including the manager’s personality traits, competencies or necessary skills, and leadership styles which are appropriate for dealing with construction work have high impact on project outcomes.

Ms. Kedsuda Limsila conducted a case study on “Effective Leadership In The Construction Industry In Thailand“. This was focused mainly on the influence of project managers’ leadership styles on outcomes and was conducted in order to identify the most appropriate leadership style in the Thai construction industry.

She found out that:(1) in general, project managers in Thai construction projects apply a variety of leadership styles, most often adopted is the transformational style, followed by the transactional style and the laissez-faire style; (2) the entire range of behaviors of transformational project managers and contingent reward behavior from the transactional style are capable of generating leadership effectiveness, subordinate satisfaction and extra effort while the other leadership behaviors cannot; (3) in Thai construction projects, subordinates with extroversion personality tend to produce greater work effectiveness and exert extra effort whereas subordinates with conscientiousness and/or openness to experience personality tend to be satisfied with and exert extra effort into their work; (4) several independent factors affect the decision making of project managers in the process of selecting the leadership styles to apply to their subordinates. The more the factors with positive relationships appear, the higher the likelihood that project managers will select those related leadership behaviors whereas the other factors with negative relationships have the opposite effect; (5) several factors that positively affect leadership outcomes (effectiveness, satisfaction, extra effort, and commitment). Some factors have association with only one outcome whereas other factors have associations with several outcomes. The higher the level of the relevant factors present, the higher the degree to which leadership outcomes will occur.

Her results pointed out that leadership style mostly adopted in Thai construction projects is the transformational style since this is the most effective leadership style to apply with Thai subordinates.

Her Ph.D. dissertation abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

The success of a construction project depends on several important factors, one of which is the competence of its project manager. There are several issues regarding the project manager have impacts on project outcomes. Examples include the project manager’s leadership behaviours, personal attributes, and competencies or necessary skills which are appropriate for dealing with construction work. Consequently, there are many questions need answers regarding the competence of project managers and issues of effective project management. For instance, what is the most applied leadership style at the current time and what are the different outcomes from applying different leadership styles? What is the most appropriate leadership style? What are the necessary competencies of an effective project manager?

Consequently, this study was conducted to investigate the actual leadership behaviours and personal competencies of project managers. It also explored the key personality traits of subordinates in Thai construction projects. Specifically, this study examined how leadership behaviours, leader personal competencies and subordinate personality traits influence leadership outcomes (effectiveness; satisfaction; extra effort; commitment) and subordinates’ work performance (work quality; work quantity; problem solving creativity; teamwork and work discipline).

Leadership behaviors and outcomes were measured using Bass and Avolio’s (2004) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), subordinates’ personalities were measured following the Five Factor Model whereas project manager’s personal competencies were measured following the Project Manager Competency Development (PMCD) defined by Project Management Institute (2002). During the data collecting process, data regarding the actual leadership behaviours, leadership outcomes and personal competencies of project managers in Thai construction projects were gathered from subordinate group whereas project managers provided the data on their subordinates’ key personalities and work performance level based on their opinion.

The findings of this study answer several questions on the top of this page that leadership style mostly adopted in Thai construction projects is the transformational leadership style. It further clarifies that this style is suitable for application with Thai people since it created leadership outcomes superior to the other styles (transactional style and laissez-faire style). In addition, transformational leadership supports subordinates to produce better work quality and work quantity. Moreover, the subordinates also tend to have high creativity in problem solving when working with transformational leaders.

Besides, the association between PMCD personal competencies and MLQ leadership behaviours revealed that the entire personal competencies defined by Project Management Institute have significant positive relationship with every factor in the transformational style but they have significant positive relationship with only contingent reward factor in the transactional style whilst having negative relationship with the laissez-faire style. It implies that project managers who apply transformational behaviours are likely to possess the necessary personal competencies required for competent project managers also.