Project Management and Leadership (Part III: Clarke and Emotional Intelligence in Project Management)

¡Hola! As the final entry for this three-post series related to project management, leadership, and human skills, I want to share an article that deals with the importance of emotional intelligence, transformational leadership, and management skills:

Clarke, N. (2010). Emotional intelligence and its relationship to transformational leadership and key project manager competences. Project Management Journal, 41(2), 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.20162

Here is the abstract:

Key dimensions of project manager behaviors considered to be associated 

with successful project outcomes have included both appropriate 

collaborative behaviors and transformational leadership. More recently, 

emotional intelligence has been suggested as a unique area of individual 

differences that is likely to underpin sets of behaviors in this area. Based on 

a sample of 67 UK project managers, it was found that emotional intelligence 

ability measures and empathy explained additional variance in the project 

manager competences of teamwork, attentiveness, and managing conflict, 

and the transformational leadership behaviors of idealized influence and 

individualized consideration, after controlling for cognitive ability and 

personality.

In fact, this study has shed light on the emotional aspects of project 

management, traditionally neglected in classic project management, which 

focuses on intellectual possibilities for development (Svejvig & 

Andersen, 2015).  Thus, Clarke posists that:

"The results from this study take forward our understanding of the role that 

emotional intelligence may play in projects in two major ways. The first 

concerns demonstrating relationships between emotional intelligence abilities 

and project manager competences that have been suggested as important for

successful outcomes in projects. Both the emotional intelligence ability, using

emotions to facilitate thinking, and an overall measure of EI ability were 

found to be associated with the project manager competences of teamwork 

and managing conflict, respectively" (p. 14)

In addition,

"The second major contribution of the study is that this is the first study to 

show a relationship between emotional intelligence abilities and 

transformational leadership, after controlling for both cognitive ability and 

personality [...] However, it should be borne in mind that, to date, there have 

been mixed results regarding the significance of transformational leadership 

within project contexts." (p. 15). 

In other words, the role of emotional intelligence and emotional variables 

cannot be denied in management just as it can be denied in leadership.  The 

study concludes that,

"Emotional intelligence has been suggested to be particularly important in 

projects due to the nature of this form of work organization. This places 

specific emphasis on project manager behaviors associated with 

communication, teamwork, attentiveness, and managing conflict and their 

importance to successful project outcomes [...] Project managers’ empathy 

was also found to be significantly associated with the competence of 

attentiveness. In addition, the emotional intelligence ability, using emotions 

to facilitate thinking, was also found to be significantly associated with the 

transformational leadership dimensions of idealized influence and 

individualized consideration. The results suggest that emotional intelligence 

abilities and empathy offer a means to further explain aspects of individual 

differences between project managers that can influence their performance in

projects"(p.17).

Although there's much more to be discussed about this article and the 

relationship between emotional intelligence and successful project 

management, the perspectives now open are worth exploring further both in 

research and implementation during actual project management, as I have 

found in the implications of the emotional presence in the community of 

inquiry framework (Cleveland-Innes, 2012).

As an educational leader, and as a researcher who has dabbled in affective 

variables in the past (Díaz-Ducca, 2013, 2014, 2015), new horizons are now 

in sight for me for the academic and professional contexts in Costa Rica.

Moreover, project management and its relation with leadership and emotions
is definitely a realm I have just discovered that I would love to take seriously
into consideration for independent research and even for my future
dissertation.

References:


Cleveland-Innes, M., & Campbell, P. (2012). Emotional presence, learning, and the online learning environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13(4), 269–292. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v13i4.1234


Svejvig, P., & Andersen, P. (2015). Rethinking project management: A structured literature review with a critical look at the brave new world. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 278–290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2014.06.004