PROJECT TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP (BUSI 3613)

CASE STUDY 2

A Comparative Analysis of a Project Management Leadership styles at “A Deep Excellence”

Overview:

According to Chen (2023), multinational corporations conduct business in two or more countries. Aligned with the definition given by Chen (2023), “A Deep Excellence” is a multinational organization, primarily known for dealing with complex time-based projects from various  industries such as  information technology  (IT), construction,  healthcare, pharmaceutical, sports equipment and so on. In other words, “A Deep Excellence” is a project-based  organization.  As  per  the  work  of  Wagner  (2018)  A  project-based organization (PBO) is according to Davies and Hobday one in which the project is the primary unit for performing certain tasks. Service firms, for example engineering providers, film studios, consultancies, legal firms, marketing, and advertising, are rather organized around projects. “A Deep Excellence” has different project teams competing to attain the best proposal for completion. Interestingly, the time-based projects often create stress among employees (Zehra & Faizan, 2017), especially in the IT sector (Haque & Aston, 2016). Nonetheless, such projects also offer to develop psychological capital (Haque et al., 2020), innovative work behavior (Haque & Yamoah, 2021), and creativity (Vartanian et al., 2020).

Team Azure and Team Mahagany 一 Project Leaders:

In today’s case study, the two distinct teams are taken into consideration because of the role of project lead. Team Azure and Team Mahagany. Margareta May is the project lead and the project manager of Team Mahagany, while Team Azure is led by project manager Mark Paddington. Both project leaders have over two decades of experience in different industries, however, Margareta has extensive experience in the manufacturing industry while Mark has been associated more with the service sectors. Their teams consist of both permanent and temporary workers, skilled and specialized in different areas of project management.

Margareta (leading Team Mahagany) and Project “Re-Moto-Set”:

Margareta has been more involved and responsible in leading a team by motivating and engaging them, frequently part of orientations and welcome sessions, creating pleasant work environment so that all members could maximize efficiency. She often spends huge amounts  of  time  in  one-on-one  interactive  sessions  with  her  members  and  part  of committees ensuring collaboration with other project leads. She is part of meetings and seminars to interact with other project leads and team leaders and project managers working  on  their  own  distinct   projects.   Margareta  is  also   responsible  for   keeping concerned parties up to date by providing timely project status. She prepares progress (status)  reports  and  shares  them  with  distinct  stakeholders.  Her  focus  is  more  on developing the interpersonal skills of the team members.

Margareta has more soft skills and approaches the situation by focusing more on the people-orientation, which is a type of leader that typically requires discussion with the team to determine the correct adjustment to new pressures (HRDQ, 2022). One of such instances  was  while  working  on  a  project  –  “Re-Moto-Set” dealing  with  long-term objectives, there are external factors leading towards change in objectives. In the meeting, the team reflecting on long-term objectives identified that deadline is tight for the on-hand project. Hence there is not much clarification about handling the situation while meeting the objectives. Through discussions with team members, she concluded that completion of project  is  not  a  likely  reality  in  short  time,  but  Minimum  Viable  Product  could  be developed right by deadline. One of the new members from your team offers an idea to accomplish the short term few objectives by streamlining, cutting, and rearranging a few elements  of the  sub-tasks,  making  it  more  realistically  achievable.  Another  member suggested that by reordering tasks around, the project leader check the interests and expertise of members while keeping them engaged and involved in the project via offering motivation, opportunity, and recognition. Her transformational style was more predominant during this project. However, the project was not completed in time and the client was unhappy with the partial outcomes.

Mark (leading Team Azure) and Project “Comp-Connect”:

On the other hand, Mark having higher practical approach due to excessive focus on task- orientation, by being more quick and agile in his stance to cope up with new pressures due to higher understanding of the situation and his team to make immediate decisions (HRDC, 2022). His philosophy centered on ‘horses for courses’ by changing only to ensure the completion of task in timely manner. Mark dedicates a lot of time to making process work on paper. He is responsible for projects from initiation to close, making sure the work gets done efficiently and satisfactorily. He is involved in day-to-day schedules that are rapidly changing. He focuses more on the project process planning, formulating budget line, effective management of time, and communicating with clients. He monitors the projects whether they are meeting the set deadlines and provides solutions, in case of issues arising during the project phases.

While working on project – “ Comp-Connect”, Mark found that there was change in the dynamic environment and many external factors were uncontrollable. Again, the deadline was tight and exerted huge pressure on the employees to accomplish it. Nonetheless, Mark  was  positive  that  the  task  could  be  attained  through  tight  and  disciplined management. His transactional and task-oriented leadership was exhibited by assigning specific  roles  and  tasks  to  each  member  and  ensuring  that  guidelines  are  given  to accomplish tasks. He had no time for discussion as he saw it a waste of time, but he was assured that the deadline was too tight but achievable. Although, more pressure was hovering because of no time to rest until the task was accomplished. Still, Mark requested the management give a week-long off to the employees after the project's successful completion. Some of the members were burn-out and exhibited higher depression and anxiety (Haque, 2023) because Mark has already clarified that there will be reward on completion, but also a punishment for falling short. Despite that, his team accomplished the task, reflecting that Mark achieved the desired result (task at hand). In addition to the completion of tasks, as promised, employees were given additional time to relax so they are prepared for another project to begin.

The two true contrasts:

Interestingly,  Margareta  and  Mark  both  demonstrated  ethical  leadership  traits  by remaining honest, respectful, transparent, and accountability (Darby, 2023). Nonetheless, Margareta  has  higher  traits  in  her  project  leading  style  such  as  adaptability,  openmindedness,   active    listening,    emotional    intelligence,   and    active    listening   and communication. On the other hand, Mark was transactional in his approach with autocratic approach. His traits are reflected by showing focus on achieving goals, practical and in- hand approach, reward performance, external motivation, clear expectations, and reward- and-punishment approach.

Margareta’s team was not able to finish the task in a project-based organization but allowed her members to be more creative and grow with a positive mindset. In other words,  unfortunately,  her  style  was  not  result-oriented  in  terms  of  profit  for  the organization,  but  the  mental  well-being  and  self-actualization  developed  among  the members. They were involved in the process through participation. In contrast, Mark was able to finish the task, but the employees showed higher signs of anxiety, depression, and burnout. Thus, Mark should be appraised for his managerial role, but the management asked him to revisit his approach while dealing with people. In other words, his soft skills need  improvement.  Unlike  Margareta  who  was  continuously  engaged  in  exchanging information with all stakeholders and focused on the development of her members yet fell short in the completion of task, resulting in heavy loss. Her decision to meet different project leaders and discussions wasted her precious time. Also, listening more to fresh and senior employees led to her weak positionality as a project lead. These are few to name, but her decisions cost the company almost $1M in the long run as the client was not happy with the partial completion.

Aftermath and findings:

In the ad-hoc meeting Mark and Margareta’s approach and team performances were discussed at length. There is no denial that both as leader showed strong personality traits and did their best to tackle the scenario. However, the room for improvement should not be ignored. Both project leads made errors in their decision making while one looks on paper successful project in terms of profitability but the compromise on the mental well- being of the members, deteriorating health, depression, anxiety, and agitation is more prominent. Thus, it is not completed a successful project in terms of overall impact. Again, it is difficult to satisfy all stakeholders but to ensure long tern sustainability, the lessons must be learned. While other project lead appeared successful in terms of long-term employee development, talent retention, and higher organizational commitment but she did  not  attain  the  desired  results  for  the  company  in  terms  of  financial  aspect  and eventually led to dissatisfied client. Both managers had made incorrect decisions that affected the project's success to some extent. Nonetheless, a good project lead and project manager is the combination of effectiveness and efficiency while ensuring all stakeholders remain on same page.

Moving forward, the ad-hoc committee asked the two project leaders to shake hands and prepare their reports on what went wrong and what were the positives. Given the chance, what would they do differently? Informal suggestion from the board of members came that Mark and Margareta shall try working on a project together to benefit from each other’s experience and knowledge.

The above case focuses on understanding the relevance and impact of different project leadership styles in relation to project success (comparing in terms of profitability and personnel development).

Provide a critical reflective summary based on the case study considering:

•   Compare the contrasting leadership styles and approaches and their short-and-long term consequences. Give examples from the case at hand as well as support examples from the real world.

• Critically evaluate the impact of decisions on the success of a project.

•   Offer a critical summary of the pertinent facts in case to describe the background of leadership style. affecting the final outcomes.

•   What was common between the two contrasting styles.

•   Write your reflection, if you were in this situation, what soft skills you would have used while ensuring completion of the project in a timely manner.

•    Draw the comparison to answer who you thought did better?

•   What will you do differently than Mark and Margareta for completion of successful project.

Reference List

Chen,  J.  (2023). Multinational Corporation: Definition, How It   Works, Four  Types.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/multinationalcorporation.asp

Darby, J. (2023). What is Ethical Leadership? Attributes,  Traits, & Examples. https://

www.thomas.co/resources/type/hr-blog/what-ethical-leadership-attributes-traits-examples

Haque, A.U. (2023). Handbook of Research on Dissecting and Dismantling Occupational Stress in Modern Organizations. IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-6543-1

Haque, A.U., and Aston, J. (2016). A Relationship between Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment of I.T Sector's Employees in Contrasting Economies. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 14(1), 95-105.

Haque, A.U.,  &  Yamoah,  F.A.  (2021).  The  Role  of  Ethical  Leadership  in  Managing Occupational   Stress   to    Promote   Innovative   Work    Behaviour:   A    Cross-Cultural Management Perspective, Sustainability, 13(17), 9608, DOI: 10.3390/su13179608

HRDC.  (2022). Task-Oriented  vs  People-Oriented  Leaders:   What's  The  Difference?

https://hrdqstore.com/blogs/hrdq-blog/task-people-oriented-leaders

Vartanian, O., Saint, S. A., Herz, N., & Suedfeld, P. (2020). The Creative Brain Under Stress:   Considerations   for   Performance    in   Extreme    Environments, Frontiers   in

Psychology, 11, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.585969

Wagner, R. (2018). Will project-based organisations be the new normal? https://

ipma.world/will-project-based-organisations-new-normal/#:~:text=A%20project%20based%20organisation%20(PBO,are%20rather%20or ganised%20around%20projects.

Zehra, N., & Faizan, R. (2017). The Impact of Occupational Stress on Employees at Project  Based  Organizations  (PBOs)  in  Pakistan, International  Journal  of  Applied Business and Management Studies, 2(1), 1-9.

Brief Description

This case focuses on understanding the relevance and impact of different project leadership style. on project success.

•    Read the following case study. Provide a summary of the case and use examples from the case to:

•    Discuss the ways in which wrong decision making can impact the success of a project.

•    Suggest alternative ways/approaches that might have led to better project outcomes.

•    Highlight the various leadership styles that were utilized in the case. Give examples specifically from the case.

•    Identify instances in which soft/people skills were utilized. How effective were these?

Case Study

Haque, A. U. (2024). A Comparative Analysis of a Project Management Leadership styles at “A Deep Excellence”, © Yorkville University, Canada.

Submission Instructions

Submission should be a maximum of 3 pages double-spaced (excluding title page and reference page) and should follow APA referencing style.

All submissions should be done through Turnitin with a similarity level no greater than 15%.

Late Submission Policy

•   This assignment is subject to the Late Submission penalty policy, namely 5% per day for three days.

•   This page will close and will not allow further submissions after this Late Submission period has expired.

•    In the event of an emergency situation that prevents you from submitting within this time frame, special permission must be obtained from your instructor. Documentation substantiating emergency is required. In such a circumstance, if the extension is granted, the Professor will reopen the submission function for you on an individual basis.

•    Please do not email your submissions to your Professor, either before or after the due date; all coursework should be submitted through Turnitin in the online course.

Evaluation and Feedback

Unit Case Study 2 will be marked in its entirety out of 100. The following rubric indicates the criteria students are to adhere to, and their relative weights to the assignment overall.

Grades and/or feedback will be made available to students no later than one week after submission.