Leadership under Construction: A Qualitative Exploration of Leadership Processes in Construction Companies in Sweden

Abstract

Leadership has increasingly been advocated as a potent organizing practice, linked positively to several performance dimensions as well as successful organizational development and change. Despite these alleged promises, the specific characteristics of leadership processes as they unfold in a construction context have not been fully captured by construction researchers. This paper is predicated on an identified lack of methodological richness underlying leadership studies in construction. While a growing number of contributions have quantitatively tested the ideas and models of leadership scholars, few have qualitatively explored the experiences and interpretations of the actual people that practice leadership in their daily work in construction companies. Drawing on a rich qualitative interview study, this paper analyzes open-ended stories about leadership in the largest construction companies in Sweden. The findings show how leadership styles have been shaped to align with traditional work and organizing principles, but also how they, by the same token, pose a seemingly unresolved tension with change initiatives that seek to reorganize to improve organizational performance. Altogether these findings indicate that there are grounds to question the transformative potential of leadership in construction companies, as practiced today. The paper concludes by outlining the practical implications of these findings, together with some analytical generalizations that can serve as pointers for a strengthened leadership agenda in construction research, one that is characterized by an increased methodological richness and accentuated focus on the context-specific aspects of leadership.

Key Success Factors and Their Impact on the Performance of Construction Projects: Case in Qatar

“…Researchers have studied the implication of some factors on project performance to provide managerial inputs for the organizations. For example, Löwstedt, Fasth, and Styhre [73] point out that project leadership contributes to project performance; however, leadership should be dynamic to embrace and support changes. It is also mentioned that there is no consensus regarding what may make the project more successful, although it is widely understood that such criteria can evolve, and they may be chosen based on the type of project [5].…”

Research evolution and thematic breakthroughs in project leadership: a bibliometric analysis

“…These include the specialized topics of "organizational issues", "behavior", and "authentic leadership". Scholars in this field mainly explore specific topics like the role of certain leadership (e.g., authentic leadership) in projects (Lloyd-Walker and Walker, 2011;Todt et al, 2019), and the leadership practices for issues in construction companies (Lowstedt et al, 2021;Nawaz Khan et al, 2020), and the issues like risk management (Liu and Chiu, 2016).…”

Constructive and Destructive Leadership Behaviors, Skills, Styles and Traits in BIM-Based Construction Projects

“…[40], the authors claimed that leadership is essential in all fields of human endeavor. Leadership is even more important for the features of the construction process and construction projects, as they are expensive and technically demanding, and they require huge project teams and diversity [41]. Effective leadership in construction can be the solution to poor performance on projects.…”