Differentiating between leadership competencies and styles: a critical review in project management perspective

Abstract

Literature reveals a number of confusions within the area of project management regarding the use of terminology and differing interpretations, concerning leadership competencies and leadership styles. In project management literature, many empirical studies have examined the influence of leadership competencies or styles, but yet any substantial review study has rarely been conducted to differentiate between leadership competencies and styles. This study aims to differentiate between leadership competencies and leadership styles in project management literature. This study found that the project manager's leadership terms including competence, competency, competencies, and styles have frequently been used in project management literature. Furthermore, literature has been synthesized to provide more familiarity and understanding on leadership competencies and styles. Findings indicate that leadership competencies and styles are two different things but a few characteristics are common between both the terms. Furthermore, leadership competencies are more suitable for task-oriented activities and leadership styles are more appropriate for relationship-oriented factors. This study has implications for the future directions to identify differences between project manger's average and superior performance through comparison of leadership competencies and styles.