Balanced leadership in projects

On going

——-

 

Research team

Nathalie Drouin

Shankar Sankaran

Ralf Müller

Keywords

Leadership

Leader

 

 

PRESENTATION

For several years, the research team has been conducting this research for which they published a white paper in 2018. The book Balanced Leadeship, Making the Best Use of Personal and Team Leadership in Projects is the result of a thorough investigation of balanced leadership in projects.

An international team of researchers conducted 54 studies cases and 249 interviews in nine countries (Australia, Canada, China, India, Lituania, South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Netherlands).

Publications

Books and book chapters

Müller, R., Sankaran, S. & Drouin, N. (2021). Balanced Leadership: Making the Best Use of Personal and Team Leadership in Projects. Oxford University Press.

Müller, R., Packendorff, J., & Sankaran, S. (2017). Balanced Leadership: A New Perspective for Leadership in Organizational Project Management. In Sankaran, S., Müller, R., et Drouin, N. (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Organizational Project Management (180-193). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

 

White paper

Müller, R., Drouin, N., & Sankaran, S. (2018). Balancing person-centric and team-centric leadership in projects. Newtown Square, PA, USA: Project Management Institute.

 

Publications in refered journals

Drouin, N., Müller, R., Sankaran, S., Vaagaasar, A.L (2021). Balancing Leadership in projects: Role of the Socio-Cognitive Space. Project Leadership & Society, vol. 2.

Wu, G., Li, L., Müller, R., Liu, B., Wang, Q., & Zhou, S. (n.d.). Horizontal-leader identification in construction project teams in China: How Guanxi impacts coworkers’ perceived justice and turnover intentions. Project Management Journal (to appear).

Liu, B., Wu, G., Müller, R., Chen, H., & Li, L. (2021). Exploring the Effects of Horizontal Leaders’ Presence on Team Members’ Job Burnout: A Moderated Mediation ModelJournal of Management in Engineering, 37 (6)

Alonderienė, R., Müller, R., Pilkienė, M., Šimkonis, S., & Chmieliauskas, A. (2020). Transitions in Balanced Leadership in Projects: The case of horizontal leaders. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

Sankaran S., Müller, R. & Drouin, N.  (2020). An action research evaluation of a collaborative research project on balanced leadership in projectsInternational Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 14(1), 205-230.

Vaagaasar, A., & Müller, R. (2020). Balansert lederskap. Magma, (7), 54–61.

Kvalnes, Ø. (2020). Balanced Leadership. In Digital Dilemmas: Exploring Social Media Ethics in Organizations (pp. 73–75). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan. 

Graham, P., Nikolova, N., & Sankaran, S. (2020). Tension Between Leadership Archetypes: Systematic Review to Inform Construction Research and Practice. Journal of Management in Engineering, 36(1).

Sankaran, S., Vaagaasar, A. L., & Bekker, M. C. (2019). Assignment of project team members to projects: Project managers’ influence strategies in practice. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business,13(6), 1381–1402.

Zhu, F., Wang, L., Sun, M., Sun, X., & Müller, R. (2019). Influencing factors of horizontal leaders’ role identity in projects: A sequential mixed method approach. International Journal of Project Management, 37(4), 582–598.

Drouin, N., Müller, R. & Sankaran, S. (2018). Balancing vertical and horizontal leadership in projects: Empirical studies from Australia, Canada, Norway and Sweden. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. 11(4), 986-1006.

Yu, M., Vaagaasar, A.L., Müller, R., Wang, L., & Zhu, F. (2018). Empowerment: the key to horizontal leadership in project teams. International Journal of Project Management, 36(7), 992-1006.  

Pilkienė, M., Alonderienė, R., Chmieliauskas, A., Šimkonis, S. & Müller, R. (2018). The governance of horizontal leadership in projects. International Journal of Project Management, 36(7), 913-924.

Müller, R., Zhu, F., Sun, X., Wang, L., & Yu, M. (2018). The identification of temporary horizontal leaders in projects: International Journal of Project Management, 36(1), 95-107.

Müller, R., Sankaran, S., Drouin, N., Vaagaasar, A., Bekker, M. C., & Jain, K. (2018). A theory framework for balancing vertical and horizontal leadership in projects. International Journal of Project Management, 36(1), 83-94.

 

  

Other publications

Sankaran, G. (2018). Balanced leadership: A new way to lead for project success. The CEO Magazine. 2018-12-10.

 

Thesis

Aartun, D. B., et Særsland, A. E. (2019). Daring to Dream: Leadership practices in Norway’s U20 National Football Team. BI Norwegian Business School.

  

Presentations et conferences
Drouin, N., Badham, R., Levitt, R., (2021). Session 2: Insights on Project Leadership for a Changing World, International Symposium on Project Leadership, John Grill Institute for Project Leadership at the University of Sydney, November 10.

Müller, R., van Marrewijk, A., Davies, A., (2021) Session 4: Leadership and Governance, International Symposium on Project Leadership, John Grill Institute for Project Leadership at the University of Sydney, November 10.

Sankaran, S. (2021). Advances of leadership in projects and programs. Project Management South Africa National Conference 2021. November 23-24.

Drouin, N. (2020). Leadership des projets : Comment équilibrer le leadership vertical et horizontal en gestion de projet? Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (AACE International), 21 octobre.

Sankaran, S., Müller, R. & Drouin, N. (2019). Developing actionable knowledge and leadership theory in project management through a collaborative research project. 19th EURAM Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, June 26 – 28.

Agarwal, U. A., Dixit, V., et Jain, K. (2019). Exploring the Role of Organisational Practices in Influencing Horizontal Leadership in Projects: A Study of Indian Organizations. In Proceedings of the PMI India Research et Academic Conference 2019, February 28 – March 2, 2019, Thiruvananthapuram, India.

Sankaran, S., Vaagaasar, A. L., & Bekker, M. C. (2018). Nominating project team members with a potential to take on leadership roles in projects. In Proceedings of EURAM Conference 2018, Reykjavik, Iceland, June 20-22.

Müller, R., Sankaran, S., & Drouin, N. (2018). Horizontal Leadership’s Influence on Project Success and the Role of the Cognitive Space. In Proceedings of EURAM Conference 2018, Reykjavik, Iceland, June 20-22.

Müller, R., Sankaran, S., Drouin, N., Vaagaasar, A. L., Bekker, M. C., & Jain, K. (2017). A theory framework for balancing vertical and horizontal leadership in projects. In Proceedings of the IRNOP 2017 Conference. June 12-14, 2017, Boston, MA, USA.

Drouin, N., Müller, R., Sankaran, S., Vaagaasar, A. L., Nikolova, N. & Jain, K.  (2017). Balanced Leadership in Projects: Building a socio-cognitive-space as an Organizational Capability. The “Project Hat.” In Proceedings of the IRNOP 2017 Conference. June 12-14, 2017, Boston, MA, USA.

Müller, R., Zhu, F., Sun, X., Wang, L., & Yu, M. (2017). The identification of temporary horizontal leaders in projects: The case of China. In Proceedings of the IRNOP 2017 Conference. June 12-14, 2017, Boston, MA, USA.

Agarwal, U. A., Dixit, V., Jain, K., Sankaran, S., Nikolova, N., Müller, R., & Drouin, N. (2017). Exploring Vertical and Horizontal Leadership in Projects: A comparison of Indian and Australian contexts. In Proceedings of the PMI India Project Management Research and Academic Conference. March 2 – 4, 2017, Delhi, India.

Zhu, F. Sun, M. Sun, X. (2017). ” Horizontal leader’s role identity in projects: A research based on qualitative comparative analysis”, in Proceedings of The 12th (2017) Annual Meeting of Chinese Academy of Management, October 27-29, 2017, Tianjin, China.

Zhu, F. Sun, M. Sun, X. (2017). ” Influencing factors of horizontal leader’s role identity in projects: A fuzzy-set approach”, in Proceedings of the Forum on Case-based and Qualitative Research in Business Administration in China, November 10 – 12, 2017, Wuhan, China.

Müller, R., Nikolova, N., Sankaran, S., Zhu, F., Xu, X., Vaagaasar, A. L., & Drouin, N. (2016). Leading Projects by Balancing Vertical and Horizontal Leadership –International Case Studies. In Proceedings of EURAM 2016 (European Academy of Management Conference). June 1 – 4, 2016, Paris, France.

Müller, R., Vaagaasar, A. L., Nikolova, N., Sankaran, S., & Drouin, N. (2015). “The socio-cognitive space for linking horizontal and vertical leadership”. In Proceedings of the APROS/EGOS Conference 2015, December 9-11, 2015, Sydney, Australia.

NEW BOOK ON BALANCED LEADERSHIP

The book Balanced Leadeship, Making the Best Use of Personal and Team Leadership in Projects is the result of a thorough investigation of balanced leadership in projects. It provides a comprehensive leadership theory and addresses a variety of project-specific leadership approaches such as horizontal and balanced leadership. As authority shifts dynamically between project managers and team members according to the project’s requirements, it becomes evident that leadership is not static but rather dynamic. This book offers a novel way of considering and using leadership to carry out projects successfully.

Article about the role of the socio-cognitive space in balanced leadership

The research team published an article on the cognitive mechanisms that support the continuous transfer of leadership authority between project managers and team members in projects. The study shows that empowerment, self-management, and a shared understanding of the skills needed determine and legitimize ‘who should exercise leadership’ at any point in time. The article develops and discusses a theory on the role of the socio-cognitive space in balanced leadership.

Drouin, N., Müller, R., Sankaran, S., Vaagaasar, A.L (2021). Balancing Leadership in projects: Role of the Socio-Cognitive SpaceProject Leadership & Society, vol. 2.