COMPREHENSIVE STUDY PROJECT

Leadership in Construction Industry

Abstract

Leadership is among the most vital aspects of every successful business, it is a pillar of leading businesses. As an effective leader can make a real difference, and can be the sole reason of company's success, and equally, an ineffective leader can ruin even the most profitable venture or prospects of the firm. Therefore, an effective and a sound leadership hold importance for every organization as well as industry as a whole. Various authors or researchers expressed leadership in different styles, where, in general, leadership is about leading others efficiently towards a mutual goal. The research analysis of this study clearly suggests that an effective leader is the one who poses some particular traits and behaviors such as vision, inspiration, ability to listen, effective communication, charisma, business understanding, integrity, and certain others. Whereas, an ineffective leader is recognized to be the one who shows lack of confidence in his/her employees, lack of decision making, impatient, not having sufficient time for followers, and some others. While viewing leadership in a construction industry, it is analyzed that there is s huge lack of leadership in this industry, mainly because people do not even recognize what leadership is about and how much importance it holds. Furthermore, certain specific characteristics of existing great leaders of construction industry are identified, such as ability to listen, vision, influential, understanding of the business, and revolutionary. On the other hand, there are much more traits and behaviors (such as effective communication, charisma, inspiration, and others) that must exist in the construction industry leaders, as they are the desired elements of successful leaders. Thus, there is a gap between the essential and existing state of leadership in the construction industry. This untapped leadership potential needed to be focused on in order to further succeed and lead this industry effectively, for which certain recommendations are also stated in this research paper. Leadership in Construction Industry

Introduction

In today's highly competitive and rapidly advancing world, every business or industry is trying to be more and more efficient in order to soundly compete and lead the market. Various factors or elements are used by organizations to perform strongly, and among these elements 'leadership' is one of the most vital aspects for making business succeed. Since past many years, significance of effective leadership was recognized and it has been studied and emphasized throughout 20th Century (Northouse, 2010, p.2), due to which it still holds a great importance. It is identified that even a course or action of a single person can impact on many (followers) resulting in either positive or negative outcomes. One may wonder how the world would look like without the leaders such as Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill or even Adolf Hitler. By studying an example of Richard Branson from Virgin group or Steve Jobs from Apple, we can see how strong leadership may translate into success of the business.

Significance of leadership is highly emphasised and focused in business world, which can be the reason behind its ...