Influences of Team Environment on Leadership

Many observations from best practices and formal field studies are pointing at an interesting, professionally stimulating work environment, high on recognition and accomplishments, as conducive to effective team leadership and high project performance. These conditions seem to affect motivation and commitment of individual team members, cross-functional communications, and many components that ultimately influence the team characteristics favorably (Figure 1) and produce high project performance. However, more rigorous statistical tests had to be performed before conclusions could be drawn. Table 4 summarizes the results of a Kendall Tau analysis, measuring the association between the work environment and leadership effectiveness. The results show indeed that those conditions that are conducive to a professionally stimulating work environment, also lead to higher levels of 1) trust, 2) respect, 3) credibility, 4) ability to influence decisions, and ultimately 5) overall team leadership effectiveness.

Table 4: Influences of the Work Environment on Team Leadership Effectiveness

Characteristics of Team Environment[*]	Perceived Team Leader Characteristics[#] (Kendall's Tau Correlation)
	Trust of Leader[*] τ1	Respect of Leader[*] τ2	Credibility of Leader[*] τ3	Leader's[*] Ability to Influence Decisions τ4	Overall[#] Leader Effectiveness τ5
Interesting, Stimulating Work	.32	.38	.43	.36	.41
Recognition & Accomplishment	.39	.42	.40	.41	.39
Conflict & Problem Resolution	.30	.27	.35	.33	.37
Clear Understanding of Project Objectives & Plan	.46	.37	.25	.24	.36
Clear Understanding of Organizational Interfaces	.42	.22	.21	.22	.35
Direction & Leadership	.40	.37	.34	.32	.33
Effective Communications	.33	.33	.31	.28	.30
Job Skills & Expertise	.21	.28	.30	.24	.28
Low Interpersonal Conflict	.28	.25	.26	.26	.27
Top Management Involvement & Support	.33	.41	.28	.38	.25
Good Team Spirit and Morale	.31	.42	.26	.37	.22
@ Kendall's Tau Rank-Order Correlation; Statistical Significance: p = .10 (τ > .20), p = .05 (τ > .31), p = .01 (τ > .36).
[*]As perceived by project team members on a five-point scale 1) strongly disagree, 2) disagree, 3) neutral, 4) agree, and 5) strongly agree. [#]As perceived by senior management on a four-point scale 1) poor, 2) marginal, 3) good, and 4) excellent.

The strength of the organizational and leadership variables was measured on a five-point scale as a perception of project team members, except for overall team leadership effectiveness, which was measured as a perception of both team members and senior management. As indicated by the strong positive correlation shown in Table 4, factors that fulfill professional esteem needs seem to have a particularly strong influence on overall team leadership effectiveness. The three most significant associations are: 1) professionally stimulating and challenging work environments [τ = 0.41], 2) recognition of accomplishments [τ = 0.39], and 3) the ability to resolve conflict and problems [τ = 0.37]. Many of these factors that correlate favorably to team leadership effectiveness, appear to deal favorably with the integration of the personal goals and needs of team member with the project and organizational goals. In this context, these more subtle factors seem to become catalysts for cross-functional communications, information sharing, and ultimate integration of the project team with focus on desired results. All associations are significant at p = 0.1 or better. The implications and lessons learned from the broader context of this field study are summarized next.