A study of transformational leadership behaviours for medium and top level managers working in project management departments in Turkey

discussed in every area that human being is present. In every professional business field, leadership skills of managers have an important role on success of the project. When considered from this point of view, construction industry is one of the locomotif sectors in Turkey and it is important for the construction industry to have managers with leadership skilss in order to complete construction projects within optimum cost, time and quality. Leadership behaviours had been the famous research topic in the management and psychology departments for years and within the scope of this thesis it is aimed to fnd out leadership behaviours of managers working in the construction project management area in Turkey and then accordingly analyze the relationships with the demographic variables collected from the managers. The factors that had played the role in choosing the thesis topic, aim of the study, methodolgy of the study and organization of the study are explained in the fisrt chapter. In this chapter, the first aim of the study is explained as determining the situtaion of the leadership behaviours acted by the personel who work in construction management companies as a manager. The second aim of the study is making a contrbution to the existing technical literature in thesis about leadership within the body of the civil engineering faculty. They are also expained in the first chapter that the steps of the methodology including serching the proper survey and cretating additional questions to the existing survey and the way of the conducting the survey to the participants. The second chapter of the thesis is formed with extensive literature review about the leadership. Leadership is defined in this chapter and additionally differences between the leadership and the management is expressed briefly. Five bases of power in leadership which are reward power, coercive power, ligitimate power, expert power and referant power are explained in this chapter. In addition to the leadership powers, leadership theories including traditional theories and modern theories are explained. Traditional theories consist of trait theory, beavioral theory and situational theory; as to modern leadership theories comprise of transformational and transactional leadership which are the main subject of this study. Behavioral theory includes Ohio State University studies, Michigan University studies, Blake abd Mouton Model (Managerial Grid), Rensis Likert Model and the x-y Tehories. Situational theory includes also Hersey and Blanchard Situational Model, Tannenbaum ans Schmit's Continuum Model, Fiedler's Model, Vroom, Yetton and Jago's Participating Model, House's Path and Goal Model and Leader and Member Exchange Model. Four factors which are İdealized İnfluence, inspirational Motivation, İntellectual Stimulation and İndividualized Consideration explain transformational leadership, two factors whic are Contingent Reward and Management By Exception for transactional leadership, and laissez-faire leadership behaviors are also defined in this chapter. It is also mentioned that differences between transformational leadership and transactional leadrship and defined both leadership styles. The study is related with the social sciences though it is placed under the department of civil engineering. Accordingly, in this chaper explains the characteristics of the Turkish construction sector with its history and the general construction project management definitions, scopes and stages for the social sciences' researches. It is higlighted in the third chapter in this study that project has five steps which are pre-design phase, design phase, procuremet phase, construction phase and post-construction phase and the construction/project manager should be involved in all these phases. The construction/project manager is responsible for planning and controlling all the phases and it is important for the managers to have leading skills. Additionally, importance of the leadership in construction project management field is explained and past studies including construction sector studies and other sector studies about leadership are examined in the third chapter with their results. In the fourth chapter of this thesis, there are informaion about the scale used in this study and methodology used within the scope of the thesis is explained. The survey contains two parts, first part's aim is to get general information from the participants and the second part is Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire which is developed by Bass and Avolio in 1995. The survey includes total 31 questions and aims to determine the leadership styes of the participants. Data collection style and data collection dates are emphasised in the fourth chapter. In the same chapter, statistic calculations used in this study are listed. First of the statistic calculations is reliability analysis which tests the sample's reliability and in this study Cronbach Alpha analysis is used which is the most popular reliability analysis. Secondly, descriptive analysis is used including frequency analysis. The aim of using frequency analysis is finding out the current situation about general information of the participants. Thirdly, t-test analysis is used which is a part of the inferential statistic. The aim of using the t-test is making comparision between leadership styles and demographics. The last analysis in the fourt chapter is indentifying the leadership styles of the participnts. According to the multifactor leadership questionnaire there are three leadership styles and these three leadership styles have each leadership behaviors and related questions in the survey point out these leadership behaviors. According to this hierarcy, leadership styles are determined. In the fifth chapter all data interprated seperately and the results of the analyzes are shown. First of the reliability analys's result is found as high degree reliable. The t-test results shows that, the majority of the participants are civil engineer and men, most of them are under fourty years of age, study master of science in various areas and works in the head offices of the companies. The majority of the participants are mid-level managers and the others are high level managers. Results show that many of the managers have extensive experience. T-test analysis are shown in the most of the fifth chaper and each demographics are tested separately. The significant resulst show that architects mostly prefer transformation leadership behaviours than other professions and civil engineers are lacking in being reliable leaders and finding creative soulitons when faces a complex problem. Another result shows that managers have more experiences have tendency to behave like transformation leaders. Followers find the experienced leaders more reliable. Another result shows that women managers show more transformation leadership styles than men managers. Women managers are more successful than men in making clear goals and empathize with the members. According to the results in the fifth chapter, the participants studied master of science are more successful than the others in targeting in a clear way. All categories are tested in this chapter and examined seperately and findings are shown in each categories. The last chapter of the this study consist of general results for the leadership behaviors in the sector and suggestions for the furter studies. The general resulsts civil engineers are lack of leadership skills including targeting, empathizing and being reliable leader. Another results shows that women in the sector are successful than men in acting like a transformational leader and the participants who had studied master of science have tendency to show the transformational leadership behaviours than the other participants. It is also explained in this chapter differences between the participants who works in head offices and worksite area offices. According to the results listed in the sixth chapter, it is recommended that bachelor's level of the civil engineer departments should be developed by adding social sciences' lessons including management organizational behavior and organization theories lessons. This study could be a guide study for who wishes to study in leadership styles area in project management sector.