Project Managers’ Leadership Styles And Their Differential Effects On Team Cohesion And Task Performance In The Nigerian Construction Industry

Abstract

The success or failure of complex construction projects, especially in emerging economies such as Nigeria, is closely linked to the effectiveness of project management leadership in improving team cohesiveness. This paper discusses the most prevalent form of leadership styles by project managers (PMs) within the Nigerian Construction Industry (NCI) and their impact on the social relations-task performance dichotomy of the team, as well as their impact on team cohesiveness. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire from 70 construction practitioners in Lagos state, Nigeria. The data analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including the Mean Item Score (MIS), and regression analysis. The most common leadership style in the NCI was democratic leadership (MIS = 4.15), followed by transformational leadership (MIS = 3.98). However, a counterintuitive finding emerged as democratic leadership was negatively correlated with task performance (r = -0.205, p < 0.05) but positively correlated with social relations (r = 0.251, p < 0.01). On the other hand, the autocratic leadership showed positive relationships with social relations (r = 0.185, p < 0.05) and task performance (r = 0.240, p < 0.01). Transformational leadership had the strongest positive relationships with each dimension of social relations (r = 0.355) and with task performance (r = 0.288, p < 0.01). The results indicate that contingent leadership models that incorporate aspects of transformational and adaptive leadership should be embraced by project managers to maximise social cohesion and task performance. This study contributes empirical evidence on context-specific leadership effectiveness in developing economy construction sectors.