Transformational leadership and teamwork improvement: the case of construction firms

Abstract

Purpose

A need for effective leadership and adequate managing the personnel is vital for every construction organization. Meanwhile, the dynamic and complex environments of the industry may be caused that not much research has been conducted on leadership practices in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to study the leadership style of the construction leaders in Iran and explore the correlation of transformational leadership practices with teamwork improvement in the construction companies.

Design/methodology/approach

The research analysis was completed on a sample population of 107 managers within nominated construction firms in Iran. The analysis methods in this research were mainly descriptive and regression-based analyses and the type of investigation was a co-relational study.

Findings

The research found the level of the leaders’ orientation for people and task in their leadership style, their transformational leadership qualities, and the relationship of transformational leadership with teamwork improvement in the respondents’ companies.

Originality/value

The study is the first to investigate the leadership style of the construction leaders in Iran, and weather transformational leadership practices effects on teamwork improvement in the industry.

Citation

Akhavan Tabassi, A., Ramli, M., Hassan Abu Bakar, A. and Hamid Kadir Pakir, A. (2014), "Transformational leadership and teamwork improvement: the case of construction firms", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 33 No. 10, pp. 1019-1034. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-01-2012-0003