Prevalence of leadership and management features amongst construction project managers in the UAE

Leaders and managers are different, and their traits are also different. Construction project managers (CPMs), as leaders, often provide vision and direction on how projects should be executed. CPMs, as managers, also plan and control the delivery of projects. CPMs are, therefore, expected to have both leadership and management abilities. Little attention has, however, been paid to the relative prevalence of the management and leadership attributes among CPMs. This research, thus, aimed at investigating the relative prevalence of the leadership and management traits of CPMs. The research was undertaken in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where selected CPMs were asked to evaluate themselves in terms of 13 comparative "leadership versus management" features. Analysis of the data collected by means of descriptive and inferential statistics generally showed an overwhelming dominance of the leadership traits over their management counterparts. The respondents in this regard, felt that they possessed leadership qualities such as being creative, inspiring, trusting and passionate. This suggests that more of the CPMs who were surveyed have prevalent leadership traits. The study, which has identified current CPMs who are potential leaders, contributes to knowledge on how contractors and other organisations can systematically identify potential leaders of their entities.