The construction industry is recognizing the need for leadership development and succession planning. Industry has typically responded to this need by enacting succession planning programs that identify a handful of high-potential personnel at an early stage in their careers, and expose these candidates to specialized leadership development and mentoring programs not available to their peers. Recent research at Clemson University by the authors compared the leadership behaviors of two groups of construction project managers within a major international, U.S.-based construction company. The top performers were also the best leaders, as proven by a leadership analysis. The analysis also identified specific causal influences for achieving top performer status. This article provides justification for the “all-hands” approach to leadership development programs as a way of producing sufficient highly qualified professionals in the quest for succession planning in the construction industry.
The construction industry is recognizing the need for leadership development and succession planning. There is a realization that the leadership development process takes years to produce results (Rubin et al. 2002). In too many cases good technical people have been promoted to senior positions requiring people-oriented leadership and management skills that they were ill prepared to provide. Rubin reported on a survey that indicated only 18 percent of the construction industry executives surveyed had any formal personnel management or leadership training.
The need for improved leadership skills in the construction industry is gaining attention elsewhere. In January 2001 ASCE began a new quarterly publication titled Leadership and Management in Engineering. At the June 2003 Top 1000 Contractors Leadership Forum 2003, industry leaders stressed the need to “push responsibility down” and “develop leadership teams” (Hirsh 2003). ASCE has established a body of knowledge (BOK) to change the academic prerequisites for licensure and professional practice in the future. There are now fifteen desired outcomes, and Outcome 15 is “An understanding of the role of the leader and leadership principles” (Russell et al. 2004).
An important aspect of leadership development is succession planning. Succession planning can be defined as any effort to ensure the continued effective performance of an organization, division, department, or work group by making provision for the development, replacement, and strategic application of key people over time (Rothwell 2001). Although succession planning is widely recognized as being important for developing the next generation of senior leaders (Welch 2001; Goleman et al. 2002), there is less understanding for when the development process should start and who should be involved (Tichy and Devanna 1990; Zenger and Folkman 2002). Some companies spend considerable time planning leadership development processes as a part of formal succession planning, while in others it is done more informally. This development process may include new job assignments, formal training, committee assignments, mentoring, attendance at meetings outside of an individual’s current responsibilities, special projects, and special development jobs (Kotter 1990). The succession planning challenge is for companies to find, develop, and install new leaders without taking a “time out” while they groom them (Tichy 1997).
This paper provides the results of recent research conducted at Clemson University to quantify leadership behaviors in the construction industry and to identify how leadership skills are developed. The authors analyzed the leadership behaviors of construction project managers in a large, representative, U.S.-based international construction company. The research also examined causal influences that may develop the leadership behaviors that enable development of construction project managers into top performers. Finally, the research examined the issue of succession planning by use of a box-plot analysis. The results of this research and analysis can be used to examine the effectiveness of leadership training and development programs used in the industry today, and make pertinent recommendations regarding succession planning.
A primary assumption of this research is that leadership skills can be taught and developed. It is widely accepted that athletes can be taught skills to improve their athletic performance. It is also well known that newly commissioned officers in the United States Military can be taught leadership skills that twenty years later produce Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps Colonels or Navy Captains who lead and manage some of the most complex, technical, and responsible units in the world.
Research Methodology
The methodology developed evaluated two groups of construction project managers to determine their relative level of leadership skills. The research utilized a leadership evaluation format because it offered the opportunity to quantify the results of leadership analysis. The Kouzes-Posner Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) was utilized in this process (Kouzes and Posner 2002). The first group to be evaluated was comprised of forty top performing construction project managers as selected by senior management and based on corporate performance metrics. A control group of forty other construction project managers was selected at random. Both groups of construction project managers completed the same LPI process. The project manager participants also completed a supplementary questionnaire that provided demographic and opinion data and were used to identify causal influences that may have resulted in differences in their respective leadership behaviors. The validated LPI software featured its own psychometric properties of analysis, while the supplementary questionnaire was designed by the authors and subjected to the Cronbach Coefficient Alpha test for internal validation (Cronbach 1954). The statistical analysis system (SAS) was used to conduct analysis of the data as well as to find correlations.
This research sought to prove or disprove three distinct hypotheses relative to the leadership behaviors of construction project managers. The first hypothesis is that a group of top performing construction project managers has different and better leadership behaviors than a control group of randomly selected construction project managers, as measured by the Kouzes-Posner LPI. The second hypothesis is that the same group of top performing construction project managers has different causal influences from the control group of construction project managers, as measured by the two sample -test analyses of data from a supplementary questionnaire. The third hypothesis is that the top performing group of construction project managers has such a statistically significant different level of performance from the control group of construction project managers that special leadership development programs are warranted for succession planning purposes.
Results
Demographic Data
The research surveyed eighty of the 335 construction project managers of the participating company. As seen in Table 1, the participation percentage was 85 percent, which represents an exceptionally robust turnout. This result is especially impressive when it is recognized that each participant had to submit an LPI self evaluation, and get seven or more LPIs submitted by his or her manager, co-workers, direct reports, and others. In total, 719 survey forms were included in the research.
Table 1. Construction Project Manager Research Participants
Construction project manager category
Number selected
Number responses
Response %
Total population
335
68
20.30
Selected for research
80
68
85.00
Top performers
40
35
87.50
Control group
40
33
82.50
There were only five female project managers included in the study, a population that was too small to draw statistical inferences. As might be expected for a large multinational corporation that undergoes costly, complex, and large-scale projects, the average age of the project managers was close to fifty years of age. Table 2 provides the data.
Table 2. Age (Years) Comparison of Study Groups
Group
Mean
StandardDeviation
DF
Top performers
35
51.612
6.2992
65
1.21
0.2316
Control group
32
49.797
5.9779
65
Leadership Analysis
The methodology utilized for the leadership evaluation was the Kouzes-Posner LPI. The LPI is a forty-question test designed to provide feedback from self, managers, co-workers, direct reports, customers, and other constituents. Kouzes and Posner identified five leadership practices areas that can be used to measure leadership practices as well as to provide areas for training and self-improvement. A brief explanation is provided in Table 3 (Kouzes and Posner 2002).
Table 3. The Five Kouzes and Posner Leadership Practices
LPI practice
Leadership actions related to the practice
Model the way
Demonstrate strong beliefs related to personal values, character, and integrity. Set high personal standards. Use influence to build and affirmthe company’s values. Lead by example and do what you say you will do.
Inspire a shared vision
Create an exciting vision of the future. Use the vision to give the life and work of the organization a sense of meaning and purpose. Focus the organization on the vision. Enlist others by involving and listening. Clarify the vision through stories and figures of speech.
Challenge the process
Look constantly for opportunities to improve the organization. Seize the initiative with enthusiasm, determination, and the desire to make something happen. Challenge the status quo. Make work fun. Admit mistakes and analyze projects to improve, not to assess blame.
Enable others to act
Recognize that leadership is a team effort and foster collaboration by promoting cooperative goals and building trust. Establish an environment of trust and respect by considering the viewpoint of others. Encourage competence by sharing power.
Encourage the heart
Value and recognize contributions of others. Set high expectations and use a variety of rewards when expectations are met or exceeded. Show appreciation for excellence by giving public recognition. Demonstrate concern by “walking around” to encourage and inspire.
The research found statistically significant differences between the two groups of construction project managers for three of the five leadership practices: “model the way,” “inspire a shared vision,” and “challenge the process.” In the two-sample -test that was conducted, the “P-value” is the probability associated with a statistically significant difference between the two groups when the Type I error rate is set at (a 90 percent level of confidence). An asterisk (∗) in the table denotes a statistically significant difference. The statistical data is shown in Table 4.
Table 4. LPI Comparisons between Top Performers (TP) and the Control Group (CG)
LPI area
Group
Mean
StandardDeviation
P-value
Model theway
TP
46.409
4.1150
CG
44.333
3.9060
Inspire ashared vision
TP
40.926
4.2671
CG
39.045
4.7472
Challenge theprocess
TP
44.280
4.1485
CG
42.000
3.9671
Enable othersto act
TP
48.066
3.9114
0.6999
CG
48.430
3.8496
Encourage the
TP
45.260
5.2908
0.1112
heart
CG
43.336
4.4723
Table 4 depicts a statistically significant difference in scores between the top performer group and the control group on three of the five measurable LPI areas. Although statistical difference was found between the two groups, a discussion is merited as to whether that statistically significant difference in mathematical scores constitutes practical difference. Perhaps the best analogy would be professional football, where all the players at that level are outstanding. However, there is a subtle difference and those best of the best are selected for the all-star team. The differences are portrayed in Fig. 1. The LPI research is described in more detail in dissertation research conducted by the authors (Skipper 2004).
Fig. 1. LPI (average) graph
Causal Influences Analysis
The second hypothesis adopted in the research was that the same group of top performing construction project managers has different causal influences from the control group of construction project managers, as measured by data from a supplementary questionnaire. Some of the data involved specific numerical answers such as years of experience or hours of training. Another portion of the data was opinion about the impact of seven various influences on the development of their leadership skills. The scoring scale on opinion questions was from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest importance. The consolidated areas and results of the research are listed in Table 5.
Table 5. Comparison of Potential Causal Influences for Second Hypothesis
Potential causal influences
Significantdifferences
No significantdifferences
College education
˟
Years/job experience
˟
Years PM experience
˟
Formal management/leadership training
˟
Initial job assignments
˟
Initial job supervisors
˟
Mentoring/coaching
˟
Reading/self-study
˟
Greatest financial responsibility
˟
Four of the nine potential causal leadership influences indicated statistical differences between the groups: years of project management experience, mentoring and coaching by seniors, reading and self-study, and greatest financial responsibility. Mentoring and coaching requires the support of others while reading and self-study requires the initiative of the individual. This particular finding is in agreement with the literature, which states that learning leadership is very personal, and usually requires the initiative of the individual for self-improvement (Tichy 1997; Cohen 2000; Bergernon 2001). Years of project management experience and largest financial responsibility indicates that you best learn leadership through leadership experience, and the more experience you have the better you are and the more trusted you are by your seniors. Both groups indicated that formal education courses taken in and since college were lesser influences in leadership career path development. This finding agrees with the literature that challenges higher education to make their curriculums more responsive to the leadership and management needs of today’s engineer (Skipper 2004; Walesh 2004; Bernhold 2003). The causal influence research is described in more detail in dissertation research (Skipper 2004).
Box-Plot Analysis
Box-plot analysis was used as another approach to analyze the difficulty of selecting top performers. SAS process univariate was used to generate box plots for the five Kouzes-Posner LPI (average) practices. LPI (average) scores were used since the literature accepts the evaluation process as the most accurate tool currently available. Box plots graphically represent a set of scores that can be used to examine the shape of the distribution (Ott and Longnecker 2001). The median value is Q2, and the median of the lower and upper halves of the data become Q1 and Q3, respectively. The interquartile range (IQR) is the numerical difference between Q1 and Q3. In the following box plots, the median (Q2) is the line between the two inner boxes, with Q1 and Q3 establishing the lines for the outside of the boxes. Outliers (0) are more than 1.5 IQRs beyond Q1 or Q3. An extreme outlier (∗) is 3 IQRs beyond Q1 or Q3. The mean is represented by a + sign. Figures 2–6 illustrate the box plots, where the vertical axis represents the LPI score.
Fig. 2. Model the way LPI (average) box plot
Fig. 3. Inspire a shared vision LPI (average) box plot
Fig. 4. Challenge the process LPI (average) box plot
Fig. 5. Enable others to act LPI (average) box plot
Fig. 6. Encourage the heart LPI (average) box plot
Figures 2–6 indicate tremendous similarity in leadership practices between the two groups of construction project managers in the research. In general, LPI scores for the top quartile of the control group easily fall in the top 50 percent of the top performer group. Likewise, scores for the lower quartile of the top performer group easily fit in the bottom 50 percent of the control group. These data indicate the difficult challenge faced by senior management in accurately selecting top performers from this particular population of construction project managers. That the corporate executives were able to accurately select the top performers as a group without access to the detailed data generated by this research demonstrates their keen abilities to evaluate performance.
Data Interpretations
The prevalent leadership development program in industry today is to select a small handful of young, bright, promising individuals, and provide them with specialized leadership training. This approach assumes that corporations can accurately predict who their future leaders will be at a relatively junior age in terms of experience. It also assumes that those who get the training will stay with the company. Another assumption is that those who do not get the specialized training would not benefit from the training or that training everyone is not cost effective. The problem with these assumptions is that as shown in the box-plot analysis, the executives were erroneous in their selection criteria approximately 30–40 percent of the time.
A better approach might be that taken by the United States Military. Commissioned officers are expected to complete six—to nine-month-long leadership programs at every significant stage in their careers as a requirement for promotion. Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps captains (and Navy lieutenants) at the five—to eight-year point must complete advanced officer training in their military specialty (infantry, engineering, etc.). Majors (and Navy lieutenant commanders) must complete command and staff college. Lieutenant colonels (and Navy commanders) attend war colleges. Those officers who do not attend these programs in residence or complete them by correspondence are simply deemed not qualified for promotion. As might be expected, the best officers find a way to complete these training programs in order to stay competitive for promotion and retention. As a result, the services are in the enviable position of having to pick from the “best of the best” every time a promotion board convenes. The normal lament is that exceptionally well-qualified personnel were not selected for promotion because there just were not enough congressionally mandated spaces available.
A leadership development culture, when applied throughout a company, is well documented for obtaining results (Goleman 2000; Katzenbach and Santamaria 1999). Research has shown that the best companies develop leaders at all levels. Companies such as Procter & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and GE have embedded coaching, mentoring, and leadership development in their culture. For these and other companies, leadership and succession is not just a CEO concern (Tichy 1997). These companies seldom go outside their company to find senior leaders. In fact, their employees are frequently recruited by other companies who fail to develop their own leaders.
Conclusion
The use of the Kouzes-Posner LPI proved successful in generating quantifiable leadership data on each participant through use of the analysis. These data were then loaded into the SAS, where process means was run on each sample and then two sample -tests performed. Statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of construction project managers, indicating that corporate executives can identify their best leaders.
The research also provided a detailed analysis of the causal influences that may or may not contribute to subsequent high-level performance as a construction project manager. Questionnaire responses were composited into related areas, mixing hard data with opinions. Differences were determined in four of the nine measured areas, providing extremely useful information for the implementation of leadership development programs.
Through analysis of data by box plots, the research demonstrated that it is extremely difficult to be more than 50–60 percent accurate in selecting top performers. The data supports the view that leadership development programs are best devised to serve all members of the organization. Specifically, the differences in box-plot analyses are not sufficient to justify separate leadership development programs or to only provide leadership development programs for a select few.
In summary, this paper and supporting research indicates caution should be exercised in attempting to identify a select group of people for special leadership development training/treatment in an effort to address succession concerns.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Barry Posner for his permission to utilize the LPI questionnaire and associated analysis software for the project manager research that is referenced in this paper.
References
Bernhold, L. E. (2003). “To save our profession, higher education in construction needs a radical change.” Proc., Construction Research Congress, ASCE, Reston, Va.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., and McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence, Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
Rubin, D. K., Powers, M. B., Tulacz, G., Winston, S., and Krizan, W. G. (2002). “Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, but the great ones focus on people.” Eng. News-Rec., 249(23), 34–36.
Russell, J. S., Stouffer, W. B., and Walesh, S. G. (2004). “Changing civil engineering education: A systems view.” Proc., Specialty Conference on Leadership and Management in Construction, Construction Research Council, ASCE, Reston, Va.
Skipper, C. O. (2004). “An analysis of leadership behaviors in the construction industry: Identification of influences that develop top performing project managers and engineers.” Ph.D. dissertation, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.
Charles O. Skipper is the vice chairman for Finance and Administration, Storm Eye Institute, Medical University of South Carolina. He has published several technical papers related to leadership development and construction management, and can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected]. Lansford C. Bell is a professor of construction engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering at Clemson University. He has published technical papers related to construction materials management, electronic data management technologies, contracting strategies, and project management systems, and can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].
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