How personality traits influence management styles of construction project managers
Built Environment Project and Asset Management
ISSN: 2044-124X
Article publication date: 10 June 2020
Issue publication date: 2 July 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This research investigates the dominant personality traits of construction project managers (PMs) and how their personality influences their management styles.
Design/methodology/approach
An industry-wide survey with 70 PMs was conducted in Singapore. The survey data were subjected to inferential statistical tests. In-depth interviews were conducted with four subject matter experts.
Findings
Majority of the sample PMs are male with age, education level and experience well spread. The dominant personality traits of PMs are found to be: high in Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness and low in Neuroticism. PMs adopt “team leadership” style in which they place high emphasis on both the work that they need to complete and the people they lead. Their Agreeableness and Conscientiousness may improve over time.
Research limitations/implications
The correlations and regressions cannot prove causality.
Practical implications
It is discovered that PMs who have high conscientiousness and high openness personalities are more likely to be leaders who are concerned for both the people that they lead and production outcomes. The implication is that employers may wish to conduct personality tests at the time of hiring to ensure good job match.
Originality/value
This study is novel because it integrated two areas of knowledge – personality traits and management style. The regression analysis discovered that Openness and Conscientiousness traits may be used to predict PMs' management styles. This suggests that if personality tests are administered at hiring stage, the outcomes may be used to match potential hires to the jobs that they are being considered for.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the use of Blake and Mouton (1964) Management Styles Questionnaire and John and Srivastava's (1999) 44-question Big Five personality test.Data availability: Data generated or analysed during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Citation
Ling, F.Y.Y., Zhang, Z. and Wong, W.T. (2020), "How personality traits influence management styles of construction project managers", Built Environment Project and Asset Management, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 453-468. https://doi.org/10.1108/BEPAM-09-2019-0086
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited