The relative importance of leadership style in developing high performance technical specialist teams

Abstract

In today’s competitive business world, it is becoming increasingly important that leaders understand what style of leadership will motivate their employees and teams to deliver their projects by functioning as high performing teams. As the world changes, the style of leadership needs to change accordingly.Transformational leadership has been identified as the style that allows leaders to obtain maximum output from their subordinates, by developing and involving their subordinates, thus adding value and meaning to the subordinates role within the organisation. However, research has clearly indicated that transformational leadership is only effective when built on an effective transactional leadership environment.Within the literature and organisations, teams consist of members with various skills that are brought together to deliver a project. However, does the literature apply to teams that consist solely of technical specialists all working on the same project?The research aims to determine what leadership styles, transformational or transactional, will motivate technical specialist to become high performing, via quantitative and qualitative survey methods. The quantitative method will consist of an online survey to determine the perceived leadership styles of the senior management and junior staff. The qualitative method will consist of interviews with senior management and junior staff to determine what leadership styles motivates them.The outcomes of the research indicate that teams of technical specialists within the studied organisation perceive transactional leadership as slightly more important that transformational leadership in motivating them to become high performing teams, as having the right tools, policies and procedures are required to complete their deliverables.