Task-focused leadership competencies and their effect on project team motivation in the petroleum industry, a selected petroleum company in the Western Cape

Abstract

Petroleum projects are managed by qualified and competent project managers in the oil and gas discipline. Furthermore, the industry is an important contributor to the economic development of South Africa. However, the high failure rate of petroleum projects and delays are a common phenomenon affecting the detailed project schedules. Therefore, the petroleum projects are not finished on schedule and on budget. As a result, these challenges create bad reputations against the petroleum industry. It is further indicated that the project delays also have bad effects on clients, consultants, contractors, subcontractors, and relevant stakeholders in terms of growing adversarial relationship, mistrust, litigation, arbitration etc., because the facility of the client does not become available as per the initial plan from the planning phase. The petroleum projects severely suffer from the delays that have become so expensive to recover. The main purpose of the study was to establish task-focused leadership competencies and their effect on project team motivation in the petroleum industry. In order to achieve this, the following research objectives had to be met: First, to evaluate task focused leadership competencies ideal for project success. Second, to assess major project leadership traits that are ideal for project execution and third, to determine the most effective leadership style that project managers should have for project success. The main literature relevant for the current was gathered on projects, a project is precisely defined as a temporary venture which is undertaken to create a unique product. Well-structured questionnaires with open and closed ended questions were carefully utilized and distributed randomly to all the target respondents who were working on projects within the organization when the time was convenient for all of them to collect the data from the participants. An expert in statistics went through the questionnaire in detail to examine if this instrument (questionnaire) specifically was constructed according to the needs and requirements of the participants. Sixty-eight completed questionnaires returned were analysed and discussed. Likert scale was used to measure the perceptions, opinions, and ideas of the research respondents. There were two research techniques used namely: qualitative and quantitative research techniques for data collection. These techniques were considered suitable due to the nature of the study. Trained research assistants were also used to administer the questionnaires on a oneon- one basis while observing all Covid-19 protocols when collecting data from the respondents. This would improve the questionnaire return rate. The findings obtained from the study in consideration with the problem statement, research questions and set research objectives demonstrated that a competent project manager should possess leadership valuable qualities in the workplace to appropriately manage the project stakeholders for successful project execution. The study depicted that transformational, participative, democratic leadership, motivation, team building, team development, good communication skills, coaching leadership, succession planning, transparency, passion for learning, nurturing trust within teams, proper planning, effective time management, integrity, collaboration, information sharing, accountability, responsibility, rewarding achievements and critical leadership competencies are fruitive leadership competencies that project leaders should have and apply in the implementation of projects. The petroleum industry is enormously imperative as it is one of the pillars of the South African economy. South Africa is one of the countries in Africa and in the world with oil and gas generating companies.