Effective Leadership Styles For Managing Project Teams In Ecological Wastewater Solutions Pty Ltd Essay.

In this assessment, students are required to analyse a case study that describes an organisation launching projects. In later modules, students work in groups to analyse the actual project. In this assessment, they analyse the leadership styles/approaches they believe to be appropriate for project leadership in this environment.

Identifying and analysing leadership styles helps students to prepare for the management of the efforts of individuals who contribute to a project. This also introduces the concepts of power, and how the appropriate use of power can influence these efforts.

Explain why you might choose one of the leadership styles discussed in this module’s learning resources over another style when managing the highlighted project team.

Describe which tools and techniques discussed in the resources you might use as a PM to influence this project team.

Effectiveness Of Selected Leadership Style

Organization behaviour defines the set pattern of an organization which demonstrate its culture, values, ethics and set pattern for completing the work (Pinder, 2014; DuBrin, 2013). In this regard, the present report is based on the analysis of effective leadership styles to manage the varied project teams in Ecological Wastewater Solutions Pty Ltd (EWS). On the other hand, power distribution and informal leadership style have been used by the project manager to influence the team members. Further, different types of powers such as legitimate, reward, referent and expert power have been used to motivate and encourage the team members for the collaboration with all members and leader. Apart from this, a number of steps have been taken to reduce the challenges which are generally faced by a project manager to manage the teams.  

According to the case study, a democratic leadership style has been used by project team leader to enhance the collaboration of employees and to reduce the interruption. Additionally, the respective style is also useful to maximize the level of satisfaction of employees and focuses on continuous improvement to obtain frequent feedback (Giltinane, 2013). Furthermore, employees are allowed to raise queries, offer the ideas and facilitate the conversation with entire team members to take the best possible decision for the achievement of objectives (Anderson, 2010). By considering the case of EWS, the project manager might choose an autocratic leadership style to manage all the virtual teams which are assigned at different locations of the company. On the contrary to the case study, an autocratic style would be an effectual style for the project manager because if the leader would involve all the team members for taking a strategic decision then it might be risky for the project. Moreover, the secret information of the project may get leaked in the democratic leadership style (Kane & Patapan, 2010). However, an autocratic leader will be able to maintain the confidentiality of important information and disclose only required information to team members. Therefore, it shows that an autocratic style will be useful for the project manager of EWS to lead the all virtual project teams. Hence, team performance can be easily analyzed on the basis of team performance curve with the help of performance impact and team effectiveness.

There are few techniques which are needed to influence project teams in EWS company as follows-

• Facilitating power distribution- Power distribution is one of the important tools which is used to influence the team members of projects because members would take the decisions on the basis of powers which are delegated to achieve the objectives (Martinelli & Milosevic, 2016). In this context, it would be helpful for EWS to interact among virtual teams by facilitating the different powers such as referent, expert, reward power etc. (Panteli & Tucker, 2009; Shenoy, 2016). Thus, the brand image of the company would be clearly established in mind of the project teams that the company is emphasizing on the convenience level of project team members.
• Informal leadership style- In most of the cases, a project manager does not have an authority over the members to lead for a specific task. Then, a project manager can use the informal style of leadership to influence the team members because it can create a strong bond among members and project leader (Morgeson, DeRue & Karam, 2010). Additionally, as a project manager of EWS, it would be appropriate for the leader to use informal leadership because it offers a voluntary permission to virtual team members to perform the project.

On the basis of EWS case study, the management targets to expand their business globally; thus, the support from other employees which are not the part of the project is most essential to achieve the desired outcomes. In this context, communication style for those employees plays a significant role in the project execution. For example, for handling dissatisfied employees who want to be part of project but due to some issues like semiskilled and unavailability they miss this opportunity. At this place, the sympathies communication approach is most suitable because it helps in establishing the better relation with dissatisfied employees and prohibited any type irruptions in the project like strikes (Edmondson, 2009). However, this approach requires a large amount of time for socializing. In this regard, the systematic communication approach is also helpful to maintain the disappointment of the employees by providing the facts and details about the employees’ selection (Edmondson, 2009). Therefore, the combinations of these approaches are helpful for maintaining a large project like EWS global expansion project.

Tools And Techniques To Influence Project Teams

The motivation level in the employees affects the projects of global expansion because motivated employees tends to bring positive outcome for the business (Dwivedula & Bredillet, 2010). For this purpose, political power of leadership is one of the most significant aspect for encouraging employees because it helps the leader in the formation of different types strategies for motivating them like support the semiskilled one. It is made possible by using the power and influence of union wherein views and expectations of personnel are considered to a great extent through which personnel get the right direction along with the being the active part of the project.  

By promoting ethical decision in the business operation, the leader reveals its moral power by supporting other and inspired employees to follow the leader’s footprint in the job task and gives support their co-worker (Lunenburg, 2012). On the other hand, the conflict resolving power of the leader is helpful for avoiding conflict between the employees and motivate them to work with collaboration. Similarly, by using developmental power, leader provides the activity-based training to the employees and enhances the collaboration among personnel (Yukl, 2013). At the same time, with the help of legitimate power, the leader can set rules and regulation related to employees' collaboration and communication and force the employees to strictly follow it. Thus, this power enhances the collaboration among the employees and influence them to perform the project tasks effectively. It has a positive impact on the project success because when employees work effectively then the probability of a project's success increases (Fletcher, 2007).

Agile projects are known as software development projects which require the skilled and self-managed team members to perform the specific task (Moe, Dingsøyr & Dybå, 2010). There are following methods to develop the agile team members as follows-

• Face to face conversation- Agile Manifesto has explained that face-to-face (FTP) is an appropriate technique to develop the team members of agile projects because the members of the team would meet on regular basis to other team's members to derive the better outcomes for the project (Sharp & Ryan, 2011). However, the agile team members do not meet personally because they work on a virtual basis. In this case, face to face interaction through online communication might be helpful to develop new insights and resolve the queries of team members.
• Regular and effective communication (regular feedback)- Agile team members can be developed and managed by introducing effective communication (Sharp & Ryan, 2011). In the continuous interaction, the team members of projects work on daily basis targets and try to meet out the objectives of the company. In this context, an Agile team of EWS can be more polished with the help of regular communication because instant feedback will be given to team members for more development.

On the basis of the above explanations, it has resulted that the FTF and effective communication would be appropriate methods for the development of agile teams. In this context, Moe, Aurum & Dybå (2012) stated that agile methods are useful to minimize the potential dilemmas which are occurring in the virtual team members. Further, by incorporating the agile methods, a distributed environment can be easily managed in an effective manner for remote project teams. On a contrary, Sharp & Ryan (2011) argued that agile methods as FTF and effective communication must be differentiated from other agile methodologies based global teams then only the virtual teams of agile projects can be developed. Apart from this, the value of agile teams can be developed by individual interaction on the basis of face to face communication because it can contribute to maximizing the customer's collaboration and response for change (Stankovic, Nikolic, Djordjevic & Cao, 2013). Therefore, it reflects that agile methods are suitable for the virtual teams of the project which is associated with EWS company.

According to the case study of EWS’s business expansion project, plenty of barrier arises in the process of the project like technological, communication and leadership barriers. In this regard, the following steps will be taken to overcome these shortcomings in an effective manner.

• Leadership barrier- At this step, to improve the skills of leader training will be provided to the semiskilled leader and helps to enhance their capabilities to effectively lead the project because the working progress of project greatly depend upon the leader (Anantatmula, 2010). Thus, by providing training to the leader, the effectiveness of project outcome will improve.
• Communication challenges- For resolving the issue related to communication, the regular feedback will be taken from the team members. It helps in the identification of loopholes in the present system and solves these problems in an effective manner (Bovee & Courtland, 2012).
• Technological challenges- The barriers in technology reduces the opportunity of a business to operate the operation in a precise way (Spekman & Davis, 2004). In this regard, for enhancing the effectiveness of team member the prior training is provided for the updated system. However, if any issue arises in the technology then the expert team will be appointed to give assistance to project team members for the technological challenges. It will help in maintaining the interruption-free working environment.    

Developing Self-Managed Teams For Agile Projects

Conclusion

On the basis of the report, it has been concluded that an autocratic leadership style is considered as an appropriate style to lead the project team members because it only renders the required information instead of involvement of all members. Besides these, FTF is an approachable technique to develop the agile teams because it is based on the regular interaction of team members. Apart from this, the leadership power like legitimate has important in the different aspects like motivating for collaboration because it forces employees to follow the organizational rule set by the leader and enhances the effectiveness of project operation. On the other hand, by taking an effective decision like leader's training and hiring technical experts for resolving the project teams' challenges, the project manager ensures the effectiveness of the final outcome of the project.

References

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