Leadership for future construction industry: Agenda for authentic leadership

Research in the construction industry is beginning to pay more attention to project leadership. Current perception of construction project leaders is largely built around power, authority, and task-orientation. This is due to the traditional focus of the construction industry on technical and managerial features of construction projects. However, greater challenges of modern times and increasingly different business environment necessitate a renewed vision for leadership research and call for a change in traditional perception and mindset about leadership in the construction industry. Globalization and fast changing nature of construction have necessitated a need for project managers to have and apply different leadership behaviors, competencies and styles. To highlight the need for a new breed of construction project leaders, this paper discusses the recent construct of “authentic leadership” in the context of construction projects. Authentic project leaders possess positive values, lead from the heart, set highest levels of ethics and morality, and go beyond their personal interests for well-being of their followers. They capitalize on the environment of trust and are able to motivate people and accomplish challenging tasks. Authentic leadership possesses high potential for development as well as veritable performance of construction project leaders. Proposal made in this paper highlights benefits of authentic leadership development in construction professionals and discusses the relevant practical and research implications. An agenda for research on authentic leadership in the construction industry is also discussed in detail.