Critical project leadership competencies at a selected Information Communication Technology (ICT) organization in the Cape Metropolis

Abstract

Throughout the years, project management has evolved tremendously as technological innovations transpired and project management framework evolved. Therefore, as the project management framework advanced project success became more difficult. For that reason, this study aims to evaluate leadership competencies that impact the success of Information Communication Technology (ICT) projects, in an attempt to develop and use the competencies that correlated to efficiency in project management practices. The study highlights the significance of leadership competencies that are essential for project managers (PMs) while managing projects effectively and efficiently. An intriguing observation has been noted from reviewed literature in the field of project management that research on the leadership of PMs is still limited even though calls have been made to conduct more research for more than one decade. Therefore, to discover the contemporary challenges of project management, it is crucial to understand and adopt leadership competencies to cope with modern challenges of project management which has an effect on the success or failure of projects. The project management team members who are directly involved and consequently impacted by the leadership qualities of PMs are the study’s target population. This study is conducted in a particular ICT organization situated in the Cape Metropolis. A quantitative descriptive approach is used to generate evidence since this method is effective in providing in-depth knowledge of the topic. The data collected in this study is analysed with the specific reference to the research questions using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Excel analysis tools. The findings indicated that while technical abilities are important, but they are not the only attributes that matters although practitioners with technical skills are certainly indispensable PMs still require other competencies. Therefore, the effectiveness of PMs technical expertise should be balanced with soft skills enabling them to manage project teams to project success. This study highlighted the need for additional research on this topic as ICT projects continues to evolve. Therefore, further research should broaden and complete the accounted information to uncover more conventional causes of ICT project failures.