Appropriate Leadership Styles for Managing Project Teams

1.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.

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

3.Explain which of the six types of power as described in Raven (2004) you would employ to:

influence the project team;
motivate the team members to work collaboratively, and;
impact the project’s success.

Explain your reasons for selecting these approaches.

4.Describe the steps you might take, as project manager, to alleviate challenges faced by your project team before those challenges grow so large that they damage the work environment or the final product. Explain why.

1.The most appropriate leadership style which J&J Furnishings Limited can use is a combination of participative and transformative leadership styles. This is because the given case study J&J Furnishings is undergoing a total transformation and up gradation of its modus operandi to streamline it with the market to a greater extent. The furnishing house has set particular goals which wants to achieve in order to achieve this streamlining of business and higher market competitiveness. The first goal which the furnishing house has to achieve ins sustainability in its operations by introducing furniture from recycled wood and develop a tree planting initiative to replenish the trees harvested for timber (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The project also include restructuring of logistics systems to reduce consumption of coal and petrol, thus causing less pollution. The second project includes advancement of the software system and launch of social media marketing. The second project also includes relocating employees towards areas where there are shortage of employees. The third project included launching of new lines of furniture in response to the newly involving market demands. The project also includes expansion of manufacturing facilities to manufacture new lines of furniture. The analysis of the three projects would would reveal certain salient features (Larson & Gray, 2015).

The first project requires achievement of high grade of sustainability without compromising on quantity and profits. In fact, the project furnishing house is launching a range of pool and outdoor furniture models aiming the upper class and middle class customers. Thus, the public limited company is aiming to achieve profitability and sustainability simultaneously, both of which require huge capital investment. The firm is a public limited company domiciled in Australia. This means it has to obtain support of the investors by involving them in the process. Similarly, the firm would need to acquire support of the customers to persuade them to use furniture made from recycled wood (Harrison & Lock, 2017). The firm is also required to restructure its supply chain management and persuade suppliers to supply recycled wood. The company also requires training its employees to operate in these areas. Thus, it is clear from here that J&J Furnishings is transforming its manufacturing towards innovative and sustainability. This means the company has to adopt transformative leadership to bring about this transformation. A salient feature of transformative leadership style is that, it requires participation of a committed team of followers who execute the strategies of the transformative leader. It is clearly shows that the company requires cooperation and support of both internal stakeholders and external stakeholders (Marchewka, 2014). Thus, the, here the management needs to apply participative leadership style. Thus, it can be pointed out clearly that the appropriate style of leadership that J&J Furnishings can use is a combination of transformative and participative leadership styles as it is evident that none of the styles alone are sufficient to propel the company in its first project.

Tools and Techniques that Project Managers can use to Influence the Team

The second project would require advancement of the entire software system right from inventory to supply chain management. The management amalgamated the plan to launch social media marketing with this up gradation. It clearly means that the company is transforming its entire resource management and marketing strategy. This requires transformation leadership skills. However, transformation leadership skills alone cannot help the management of J&J achieve it’s the goals of the second project (Walker, 2015). For example, in order to launch the social media page, the marketing department, technological department, finance department and several other related departments need to participate. Similarly, advancement of the software would require integration of departments like supply chain management and technical departments. Further, such advancements might have temporary effect on the productivity of the company which means it would result in falling of the profits. This means the company on temporary basis would have to pay the investors less return on investments. Thus, the company needs to obtain the consent of the investors. This clearly shows, just like the first project goal, the company would require to obtain participation of internal and external stakeholders. Thus, once again the company needs to combine both transformative and participative leadership style.

The third project goal aims to achieve commencement of simultaneous projects to introduce new products and expand its manufacturing facilities in tune with those products. This objective can be considered extension of the previous two objective which is more concerned about the manufacturing process advancement of J&J. Thus, once again it would require use of innovation in product manufacturing once again inviting participation different departments like finance and technological department (Nicholas & Steyn, 2017). Thus, again, the company needs to combine the two leadership styles. Thus, it can finally be decided after the discussion that the most appropriate style of leadership which J&J should apply is a combination of transformative and participative leadership styles.

2.The project should use several tools and techniques to influence and motivate the team of forty member under him. The first project requires the company to shift towards use of recycled wood to make furniture and launch new style outdoor furniture. The project manager here should first communicate with the marketing department and obtain its support in promoting use of recycled wood. This would create market for furniture made from recycled wood and the customers would place orders from these models of furniture. This marketing activities would create customer support form furniture made from recycled wood which would in turn motivate the project team, thus influencing their performance positively. Thus, here the project manager should use promotion as tool to motivate the project team (Heagney, 2016).

Different Types of Power that a Project Manager can Use to Motivate the Team

The second project speaks about software up gradation and launching of social media launching handle of J&J Furnishings. The project manager can use techniques like just in time to order inventory. This would ensure that the firm orders stock of raw materials in appropriate time and quantity to ensure interrupted production. Similarly, this would ensure that J&J maintain liquidity of its working capital and deliver products to clients on time. This facilitation of smooth production facilities would motivate the project team to achieve higher levels of productivity.

The third project requires J&J to manufacture new products and expand its manufacturing facilities simultaneously. Thus, here project manager can use training of the project team staffs to increase their skills and expertise, thus positive influencing their performances (Binder, 2016).

The project manager should use legitimate power to influence positive behavior in the team. The project manager should use the power he is entitled to by the virtue of being the project manager to lead the team of project personnel. He should not use coercion and reward to lead the team. This is because, use of coercion to lead the team would create a situation of tension and insecurity in the team which would have negative impact on their performances. Again, use of reward power would have limited power. As discussed in the case given, J&J Furnishings has adopted three projects (Gilbert et al. 2015). The first project aims to achieve sustainability, the second project aims to achieve advancement of software whereas the third aims to achieve NPD and manufacturing facility advancement. The explanation clearly mentions that the project manager needs to collaborate with other departments like finance and marketing. Thus, the manager should use legitimate power to motivate the team members and boost their performance.

Motivate team members to work collaboratively:

The project manager should use expert power to motivate team members to work collaboratively. The three projects require the project manager and his team of forty project staff to collaborate with other departments like marketing, finance and technological department. This shows that the project manager needs to display and use knowledge in diverse areas like finance and marketing. The first project would require the project team to collaborate with the marketing team and research and development team to develop new sustainability based products and market them. The next project would involve advancement of technology at the J&J which would require the project team to coordinate with the technological and marketing team. The third project would require the project team to work closely with the manufacturing and marketing department (Siebdrat, Hoegl & Ernst, 2014).This shows that during commencement of all these three projects, the project manager requires to exhibit his knowledge and experience in guiding his team in collaborating with all these departments. Thus, it can be justified that while motivating the project team to work collaboratively with different departments, the project manager should use expert power.  

Steps that a Project Manager can take to Alleviate the Challenges Faced by the Team

Influencing success of the project:

The project manager should use this referral power to influence the success of the project. The first project would require the project management team to aim to adopt sustainable methods of production and marketing of new wooden furniture models. The second project revolves around launching of marketing activities on social networking platform and advancement of technology. The third project would require NPD and advancement of manufacturing process. This means the project manager would require to lead his team collaborate with different departments like finance and marketing (Roy, Dan & Modak, 2018). The project would be required to use his referral power over here to lead his team. His professional rapport and understand with the departmental heads and managers of other departments would enable him to gain more support from other departments. This would ensure higher degree of success for the project.

4.The following are the steps the project managers should take to alleviate challenges before they devastate the organizational environment:

Recognize the challenge and address them:

The project manager should recognize and address the challenges to the project department. He instead of coercing his team to face the challenges must recognize the challenges and the potential damage they can do to the organizational culture (Eng & Ozdemir, 2014).

Consult other departments:

The project manager should address the problem and consult other departments if he perceives that the challenge cannot be faced by the project team alone. For example, launching of recycled wood furniture would first require demand creation for the product in the market which is a challenge for the project management team. The project manager must consult and collaborate with the marketing department to promote the product in the market to create demand. Thus, if required the project manager should seek cooperation of other departments to face challenges (Anderson, 2010).

Train the employees and empower them:

The project manager should train and empower the employees to enable them to face challenges better. This would enable the team to handle challenges and take advantage of them instead.

References:

Anderson, B. (2010). Project leadership and the art of managing relationships. American Society for Training and Development, 64(3), 58-63.

Binder, J. (2016). Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.

Eng, T. Y., & Ozdemir, S. (2014). International R&D partnerships and intrafirm R&D–marketing–production integration of manufacturing firms in emerging economies. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(1), 32-44.

Gilbert, Y. S., Medney, H. R., Mazzotta, S. G., Wu, C., & Drake, W. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,189,756. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Harrison, F., & Lock, D. (2017). Advanced project management: a structured approach. Routledge.

Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2015). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK (®) Guide. Project Management Institute.

Marchewka, J. T. (2014). Information technology project management. John Wiley & Sons.

Nicholas, J. M., & Steyn, H. (2017). Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.

Roy, S., Dan, P., & Modak, N. (2018). Effect of teamwork culture on NPD team’s capability in Indian engineering manufacturing sector. Management Science Letters, 8(7), 767-784.

Siebdrat, F., Hoegl, M., & Ernst, H. (2014). Subjective distance and team collaboration in distributed teams. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(4), 765-779.

Walker, A. (2015). Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons