Influence of Project Leadership Styles on Project Performance: A Case of Fair Construction Company in Rwanda

Many projects continue to fail despite the huge investment and use of established project methods and techniques, as the leadership competency required for successful project performance have been found lacking. A projects success or failure is in part, based on effectively managing the constraints of scope, time, costs, and quality expectations. To achieve this, it is essential that the project manager possess and display appropriate project management leadership. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of leadership styles on project performance in Rwanda. The study investigated if authoritative, authoritarian, democratic and permissive leadership styles applied by Consultants project managers influenced the performance of construction projects in Rwanda. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. This research used a case study design. The target population for this study consisted of 116 Fair construction staff in the five construction projects whose contract period had elapsed at fair construction. Stratified sampling technique was used to select the samples. Data was collected by use of questionnaires, and a pilot study was conducted prior to the main research to pre-test and try out research protocols, data collection instruments, sample strategies, and other research techniques. Both content and construct validation were used to tests the validity of the instrument while Cronbachs coefficient will be used to assess the reliability of the instruments. Data was processed using Software Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. The study it concluded that Autocratic leadership delays completion of road projects due to high turnover of key staff, poor working relations with contractors, staff low morale and lack of commitment to work since project manager does not entertain queries on design errors, missing items in Bill of Quantitates and conflicting instructions to the contractor. The study recommends use of Transformative and democratic leaderships together in construction projects as they scored highly from respondents below 40years representing 67 % of respondents who do not want to be micro managed but need considerable freedom to perform tasks with guidance of project manager. The study also recommended that all senior staff should possess a minimum of postgraduate diploma in project management before being deployed to construction projects.