Selection and prioritization of leadership attributes: Creating a leadership model for the domestic construction industry

For the better part of a century, scholars have worked to develop a working model of leadership for business. They have had to deal with changing philosophies, advances in technology, the onset of the Internet and the World Wide Web, amorphous motivations, and the globalization of not only the world's economy but the world marketplace as well. Each new set of parameters forced a change in the leadership model: changes in focus, enhancements, and improvement. The result is a set of leadership models that have become, in the opinion of some, too broad for application in specific industry applications. In other words, contemporary leadership models require today's leaders to possess so many attributes, characteristics, qualities, and traits that the models themselves have become impractical. The purpose of this study is to answer the research question: is there a more narrowly focused leadership model, created from the "building blocks" of contemporary leadership models, which can be applied to a specific domestic industry? Does today's leader really need to possess all of the qualities suggested by contemporary models to be effective? Focusing on the domestic construction industry, a representative sample of workers and leaders will be surveyed to determine whether a domestic construction leader can perform just as effectively by exhibiting a smaller set of the more favorable qualities, those needed to be effective in a domestic construction leadership scenario. Respondents will be chosen from domestic construction companies ranging in size from one up to several thousand employees. All employment levels of the industry will be included in the study, including trade workers and leaders at the entry, mid, and senior levels. It is hoped that a new model will be developed, chosen and prioritized by the respondents, which will reflect this hypothesis.