Leadership Styles for Leading Lean Projects

This report discusses various leadership styles and their impact on project success. It focuses on the leadership style that should be implemented by SINTEF, a research organization, to handle lean projects effectively. The report compares and contrasts transactional and transformational leadership styles and recommends transactional leadership as the most suitable style for SINTEF. It also emphasizes the importance of transparency, teamwork, and constant knowledge sharing in creating valuable team members.

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SINTEF
Leadership Styles

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 1
Introduction
Applying better leadership style can have a significant impact on any organization’s
success and failure (Dunne, 2016). Leadership style is a concept of the directing staff about what
to do and work should be done also providing plans and motivating people (Yahaya, 2016). The
first leadership style study performed by Kurt Lewin in 1939 and introduced various leadership
styles such as transformational, transactional and Delegative leadership style (Gandolfi, 2017).
Apart from these there is various leadership style assess by many authors such as
transformational, Charismatic, transactional and Laissez faire and various others. However, it is
important for a leader and an organization to implement an appropriate leadership style as it
affects top to bottom management and also influences an organization’s performance and lead to
success (Winichakul, 2015).
SINTEF is one of the largest research organizations across Europe. The company has
various functional department Information technology, production, sales and marketing, HRM
and procurement and warehousing. The company has around 2000 employee across 75 countries.
Therefore it is important to implement the best leadership style to handle all the operation across
various levels (SINTEF, 2018).
This report will assess the various leadership style also tools and techniques. It will also
explain one leadership style which should be implemented by the SINTEF in order to handle the
project and all the functional areas so that the organization can achieve success.

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SINTEF The “A” Team
SINTEF is one of the leading research organization based on Trondheim Norway. The
company provides services and collaborates with many other organizations, institutes, industry
clusters, and universities. The company has around 2000 employees and 3700 clients across 75
countries. Company’s revenue is around 3.2mn and an annual sale is around 450mn (Ng, 2018).
The project manager of the company should be a good and strong leader in order to direct the
team and motivate employees to achieve the organization goals and also improve their own
skills. Leadership is all about having some traits which makes them different from others such as
big vision, confident and passionate. There is some leadership style the project manager of the
company can apply in order to run the team effectively and accomplish the objectives. These
leadership styles are:
1. Compare and contrast leadership styles
Transactional leadership style is known as the style of leadership that emphasizes on goals,
feedback and accomplishment to determine the rewards. This is one of the famous leadership
styles that can help the leaders to give guidance to their followers. The guidance is given in the
direction to attain the goals by clarifying the entire role and also the requirements of the
activities. In this leadership style, the team members are guided with the clear tasks and also the
rewards are given to them. If this leadership style is considered then it can be help the project
manager to boost the motivational level of its team members. It has been examined that power of
the transactional leaders comes from the overall formal authority and responsibility that exist in
the company. In this leadership style, the main goal of the follower is to obey the instructions
which are given by the leaders. The project manager in this case, can give instructions to the
followers and they have the responsibility to follow it so that it could be easy for them to give
their best towards the organizational activities (Iqbal, 2015)
Transactional leadership style can assist the project manager in boosting the motivation of the
staff members by considering the system of rewards and punishment. If the project manager
considers this leadership style, then the employees of SINTEF can perform better towards the
organizational goals. The employees of the company are mostly researcher and technician;
therefore, it is important for them to have guidance by their leaders as it can help them to be
efficient towards the assigned work (Fiaz, 2017).

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 3
But on the other hand, there is also the other style of leadership which is named as
transformational leadership style. This is one of the styles of leadership that empowers the
followers in relation to their attributes and behaviors and also helps in encouraging innovation
and creativity. It is examined that transformational leaders are considered as more effective as
they are more creative and they have the main role in encouraging the followers to be creative in
context to the operational activities. In this style of leadership, there is greater decentralization
of the responsibility and also there are more propensities to focus on considering the high risks
(Sintef, 2019).
It is essential for the project manager to consider the transformational leadership style as it will
help in boosting the creativity and innovation in relation to the activities performed by the staff
members. If there is creativity and innovation then it will boost teamwork in the workplace.
Teamwork is necessary for the SINTEF as it takes projects which require different skill in order
to accomplishment (Fiaz, 2017). For instance, SINTEF ocean offer services by analyzing the
level of chemicals and related projects that contain different skilled people such as researchers
and biomass and biomaterial experts.
By comparing both the style of leadership, it has been analyzed that project managers
should emphasize on transactional leadership style as compared to transformational leadership
style. It can be said that if project manager considers the transactional leadership then it will be
more beneficial for the employees of SINTEF. The transactional leadership style will be
effective in boosting the motivation and if the employees are motivated then it would be easy for
them to enhance their capability in relation to innovation and creativity (Sintef, 2019). Also, for
instance, SINTEF has many projects where every team member has different skills such as some
are researchers and some are technicians, therefore, it can be possible that everyone will offer a
different opinion. The project manager has to accept or utilize one’s opinion which is more
appropriate for the situation and make a final decision so that innovation and creativity can be
enhanced. That leads to creating negative emotions came from the rejections.
Therefore, it can be stated that on the initial level it is necessary to emphasize on transactional
leadership style so that employees can be motivated towards the different operations of the
business and also it will lead to growth of the operations on global platform.

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 4
While comparing Delegative leadership style with transactional leadership style it has
been evaluated that in this the manager has to take the final decision about the project.
Delegative style provides full power to employees for taking the final decision (Ullah, 2019).
This works effectively when the manager provides the required information and resources to
researchers at the start of the project. The team will be motivated by this leadership style.
Delegative is more useful because transactional leadership style does not allow scientists to use
their own skills although they have enough skills to take decision-related to their core job. And
with Delegative leadership, the members will have the authority to use their skills which will
help them make their performance better. The employee gets motivated while feeling that they
are equally contributed to the project’s success. However, like other leadership styles, it also has
its own causes and downsides. It can cause many problems if team members do not have enough
experience and have a lack of knowledge which is required for completing the task (Cherry,
Delegative leadership, 2019). In such a situation the outcome can be negative which will affect
the SINTEF’s performance and spoil the reputation of the company.
Charismatic leadership basically all about one man show instead of the collective team
effort. Using this leadership style the manager of the SINTEF cannot achieve the success
however he can attract others by his character as being self-motivated and confident but it is not
sufficient for SINTEF’s overall growth.
With comparing all four leadership style, transactional style of leadership is useful for the
new employee who is simply learning the job. The leader is skillful and a decent mentor with this
style. The worker is propelled to gain proficiency with ability. Utilizing Participative style with
group laborers who know their occupations, the leader knows the issue, however, does not have
all the data. The workers know their occupations and need to turn out to be a piece of the group.
Utilizing Delegative style with an employee who finds out about the activity than you do. The
venture administrator cannot do and know everything and the worker needs to take responsibility
for employment! Likewise, this enables trough to be increasingly beneficial. And using the
Charismatic leadership style the manager ends up with having more followers rather achieving
the big success of the project.

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 5
2. Delegative and le Laissez-faire Leadership
All of these Delegate leadership styles would be most appropriate to apply for the
manager in order to the accomplishment of the project. All the leadership style can be useful in a
particular situation but Delegate leadership style can be best to fit with the company’s
employees. SINTEF’s most of the employees are senior research scientist also most of them are
Ph.D. SINTEF have 71% research scientist and 56% of them have are Ph.D. (Sintef, 2017).
Therefore the manager can believe and trust in its project members to make the decision. The
manager does not need to provide every step of what should be done and how it should be done.
The team needs just little guidance from the manager.
Also, he has to provide the required resources to the team. Research scientists of the
company had done so many projects. Hence project manager needs to let them make the decision
and help them when it requires. If any of the team members are new the manager can help him or
her and can provide little guidance. However, the project manager will only be responsible for
the end decisions that are made by team members. SINTEF’s employees have all the skills
succeed as they have done many projects. Company’s research scientists are highly skilled and
motivated also they are capable of working their own and can accomplish a task or project with
the little guidance from the manager. Also, it will help in some downfall situation such as if
some of them are new the experienced researcher can help the new team members.
3. Characteristics of a valuable team member
The good and effective team is able to accomplish the project or task effectively.
However in order to create a good team SINTEF’s manager has to pick the right member in the
team so that the project has to accomplish within the deadline. There are some characteristics
that valuable team members should have such as self-aware, Multitasker, Confidant and
optimistic and embrace collaboration.
3.1. Transparency
Transparency is the important aspect and characteristics of the valuable team members. It
is important for the “Team A” to be transparent with each other share each other’s ideas. The
manager has to encourage and make them understand how they can be valuable team members
by sharing ideas and giving each other feedback. It is essential for the team member to consider

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 6
each other’s strength and weakness to understand or identify what they are good at and what are
the weaknesses (Paulus, 2019). So that he or she can improve the weak areas. A team’s benefit is
when all the members of the team are aware of each other’s strengths and weakness so that they
can help each other and allocate task accordingly. It results in high profitability performance
amongst the company.
3.1. Team effort
Teamwork is very important aspects of any projects in order to accomplishments.
Without a team effort, a project cannot be completed or can be partially successful. SINTEF is
such a type of organization which provides diverse services and has several research domains
such as Renewable energy, Ocean space, Building and infrastructure, Digitalization, Climate and
environment, Oil and gas and many others (Sintef, 2017). Hence it is important for The “A-
Team” to work as a team so that they can work in one team with diverse skills and collectively
help each other and overcome issues and challenges. With SINTEF the company conducts
researches in many countries and sometimes they work closely with other countries’ researcher
to develop solutions. Also, they exchange knowledge at the one core project.
3.2. Constant sharing knowledge and feedback
To be a valuable team member “Team A” has to encourage each other to give feedback
and share knowledge as well. There are many scientists and engineer yet most of the employees
are a researcher in the SINTEF. Hence every employee or team member has to share knowledge
with each other’s stream and field also they can give feedback so that they can work efficiently.
3.3. Team engagement
Team engagement and collaboration is the important factor for any organization without
collaboration it is impossible to run and expands the business across the globe. Team gathering
and engagement helps to be aware of the company’s goal. Engagement and collaboration are the
essential characteristics for SINTEF’s employees, as they conduct projects in different countries
and face challenges diverse thinking and attitude. For instance, in one project in India, researcher
of the company has valuable experience while they were working on the project. Scientist and
researcher of the company had collaborated and engaged with the researchers and students in

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 7
India and they gain lots of knowledge (SINTEF, 2018). Hence Team engagement leads to create
better flow of knowledge and information.
4. Tools and techniques to implement in various department of SINTEF
There are many tools and techniques to use in order to create efficiency in every
department. Various tools are providing service for different department. Such as there are many
quality control tools that should be considered to provide solutions for different kind operations.
Here are some tools which provide better solutions for SINTEF and improve efficiency.
4.1 Data Tables
This is one of the effective tools that should be considered by SINTEF at the time of
managing the operations of the business. By considering the data tables as quality management
tool it could be easy to determine the current process performance in relation gathering of the
data that can also be showcased in the form of table. At the time of developing the measurement
plan it is important to gather the meaningful data and also the data that is valid. Tools provide
real-time monitoring. Hence the organization can have the records of expenses with time
recording. The tool also provides a critical matrix as financial close and the company’s revenue.
Apart from this the company also can evaluate its staff productivity and manage overall human
capital management. With deals, account, and satisfaction coordinated your business murmurs
effectively absent much manual work fundamental (Finance Online, 2018).
4.2 Pareto analysis
This is also the popular tool that can emphasize on the efforts on the problems that provide
the highest potential for improvement by showing the relative frequency in the descending bar
graph. With the help of this tool it could be easy for the company to measure the progress in a
high visible format that offers incentives for improvement. This provides a solution for product
design and development process. Make full utilization of existing illustrations with incredible
information trade when item arranging additionally give numerous techniques for confirmation
to ensure the nature of the plan (Hooper, 2018). This tool mostly useful while researching for
mechanical techniques.
4.3 Check sheet

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 8
This method is also known as the tally sheet that are considered to organize the factor in a
proper manner and it also helps in facilitating the overall collection of the useful data in context
to the potential quality issue. By implementing this SINTEF can manage its sales and purchase
operations, accounts related operations, HRM, inventory and back office effectively and CRM
operations. This would take less human effort and increase the quality of the operations. For
instance, after implanting these tools it would take less human effort and where 4 employees are
required to complete the task, it would take only 1 or 2 employees after implementing the tool
(Finance Online, 2018).
Conclusion
SINTEF is the largest research and development organization which operates in many
different countries. The company working effectively and expanding its business across the
globe as it has many different projects related to several areas such as health, transport,
technology management, safety and security, and digital transformation. Yet it is important for
the organization that how its leaders lead and accomplish the projects effectively. The project
managers should implement transactional leadership style as SINTEF’s core job is research and
development of technology and its most if the employees are senior scientist done Ph.D. in the
related field. Hence by utilizing transactional leadership style project can be accomplished
effectively. Also, the organization can use some tools such as data table, check sheet and Pareto
analysis which automate most of the work and that leads to creating efficiency and quality in its
operations in return.

LEADING LEAN PROJECTS 9
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