Empowering the project team: impact of leadership style and team context

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the impact of leadership style and team context on structural and psychological empowerment perceptions in project teams. Design/methodology/approach – It was posited that span of control and within team interdependence will positively and significantly influence both structural and psychological empowerment. Person-orientated leadership style was also expected to positively impact both structural and psychological empowerment while task orientated leadership style was expected to have a negative impact. These hypothesized relationships were examined using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) with data obtained through a parallel quantitative questionnaire survey of construction client, consultant and contractor organizations in Hong Kong. Findings – No significant relationship was found between span of control and any facet of empowerment while team interdependence had a positive and significant relationship with psychological empowerment but not structural empowerment. Task-orientated leadership was positively and significantly related to psychological empowerment in the full sample and contractor teams but not in consultant and client teams. Person-orientated leadership was positively and significantly related to psychological empowerment in the full sample, consultant and client teams but not in contractor teams. Originality/value – The link between leadership style, team context and three facets of empowerment are examined compared with previous studies often focusing on one facet. Sub-sample analysis enabled more subtle differences of the impact of leadership style in different context to be revealed, an indication that samples may not be homogeneous.