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MANAGING PROJECTS

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Projects represent nonroutine business activities that often have long-term strategic ramifications for a firm. In this chapter, we examined how projects differ from routine business activities and discussed the major phases of projects. We noted how environmental changes have resulted in increased attention being paid to projects and project management over the past decade. In the second half of the chapter, we introduced some basic tools that businesses can use when planning for and controlling projects. Both Gantt charts and network diagrams give managers a visual picture of how a project is going. Network diagrams have the added advantage of showing the precedence between activities, as well as the critical path(s). We wrapped up the chapter by showing how these concepts are embedded in inexpensive yet powerful software packages such as Microsoft Project. If you want to learn more about project management, we encourage you to take a look at the Web site for the Proj...
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Leadership Effectiveness: Foundations

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Leaders draw on five sources of power to influence the actions of followers: legitimate, reward, coercive, referent, and expert. All leaders engage in political behavior to influence others—sometimes ineffectively. Political behavior and organizational politics focus on efforts to protect or enhance self-interests, goals, and preferred outcomes. The drivers of political behavior were noted with special emphasis on how leaders can foster or minimize political behaviors of subordinates in relation to the performance appraisal process.
Three of the legacy leadership models are the traits, Theory X/Theory Y, and behavioral models. The traits model emphasizes the personal qualities of leaders and attributes success to certain abilities, skills, and personality characteristics. This model fails to explain why certain managers succeed and others fail as leaders. The primary reason is that it ignores how traits interact with situational variables. The Theory X/Theory Y model is based on the premise that the behavior of managers is often influenced by their assumptions and beliefs about followers and what motivates their followers. Theory X is a composite of propositions and underlying beliefs that take a command-and-control approach to leadership that is based on a negative view of human nature. In contrast, Theory Y is a composite of propositions and beliefs that take an empowering approach to leadership that is based on a positive view of human nature. The behavioral model emphasizes leaders’ actions instead of their personal traits. We focused on two leader behaviors—consideration and initiating structure— and how they affect employee performance and job satisfaction. The behavioral model tends to ignore the situation in which the leader is operating. This omission is the focal point of the two contingency models of leadership that we reviewed. The contingency approach emphasizes the importance of various situational factors for leaders and their leadership styles.
The Situational Leadership® Model states that leaders should choose a style that matches the readiness of their subordinates. If subordinates are not ready to perform a task, a directive leadership style will probably be more effective than a relationship style. As the readiness level of the subordinates increases, the leader’s style should become more participative and less directive.
The Vroom–Jago model presents a leader with choices among five leadership styles based on seven situational (contingency) factors. Time requirements and other costs associated with each style are recognized in the model. The leadership styles lie on a continuum from decide (leader makes the decision) to delegate (subordinate or team makes the decision). A solution matrix is used to diagnose the situation and arrive at the recommended leadership style.

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