JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS

LEADERSHIP: HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE MANAGER

ABDELNASER OMRAN School of Housing, Building and Planning, 11800, Minden, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang Email: naser_elamroni@yahoo.co.uk ABDULLAH MAHMOOD School of Housing, Building and Planning, 11800, Minden, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang Email: mabdullah@usm.my ABDUL AZIZ HUSSIN School of Housing, Building and Planning, 11800, Minden, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang Email: abdaziz@usm.my

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine effective managers Malaysian leadership. The objective was investigated on how mangers can have better understanding of leadership and to use it to their advantage. In addition, this paper also examined to what extant Malaysian leadership managers reflect the level of their social interaction, preference for gathering data, preference for decision-making, and style of making decisions. Finally, it identified several ways on how effective managers could reduce the gap between the difference in their leader to capitalize the strength of their counterparts in order to enhance organization performance and at the same time grasp new ideas so that it could benefit both sides. This study attempted to find out the effect of functional and behavioral competences on the leadership effectiveness in relation to managers in the construction industry in the Penang and Butterworth states in Malaysia. The finding has shown that all managers surveyed basically agreed that IT knowledge and the business knowledge are the most crucial competences that should be acquired to become an effective manager in the construction industry. On the other hand intraprofessional knowledge of behavioural competences was found to be the most important for an effective manager. Keywords:: Leadership, An effective manager, Construction industry, Malaysia.

Paper presented at the International Conference on Business and Economics (ICBE) held in Constanta, Romania in November 6-8, 2008

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1. INTRODUCTION
The quality of leadership is one of the most important factor in determining the success and survival of groups and organizations. Although technologies play an overriding part under some conditions, effective leadership has often compensated for lack of equipment and resources. It would be difficult to imagine a world without leader (Fiedler, F.E., 1987). There can be little doubt that the well being and success of any nation or organization is heavily dependent on good and effective leadership. History has shown that great nations and organizations are often the result of great leadership. Nations or civilizations have been known to fall or disappear completely due to leadership failure or the lack of a strong leader. The way in which people co-operate with each other, with the leadership and with the community, and the extent of their commitment to their organization, depend very much on the style of management. As such, one must be aware of interacting with others: in the workplace, with friends, at home; any interaction between two or more different project mangers contains opportunities for growth and improved communication. It also may contain opportunities to understand differences in style of expression and action which may lead to destructive relationships. Evaluation of the ability of mangers to understand others especially their counterparts who have different culture and tradition is very important so that it will help them build good interaction with their counterparts. Realizing the importance of understanding leadership of others, this study is carried out in order to investigate the differences between effective manger and ineffective mangers. Since the early pioneering study by (Carlson, J. G., 1989), researchers have used descriptive methods such as direct observation, diaries, and interviews to discover what managers do and how they spend their time. These researches on managerial activities only attempted to find answers to question such as how much time should managers spend alone or interacting with different people to accomplish group objectives. In the 80s, management researches became very interested in the emotional and symbolic aspects of management leadership influence. These processes help us to understand how leaders influence followers to make self-sacrifices and put the need of the mission or organization above their materialistic self-interests. Nearer to the future, (Stewart, R., 1982), observation indicates that managers also have unique role requirements that are specific to a particular type of managerial position in a particular type of organization. He later formulated a model based on extensive research using observation, interviews, and diaries to describe different types of managerial jobs and understanding how managers do them. This model has three components: demands, constraints and choices. These three components shape the nature of the job and influence a managers behaviour when the following aspect of situation changes: Level of Management Size of Organization Lateral Interdependence

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Crisis Situation

This paper, however to examines how functional and behavioural competences effect the leadership effectiveness.

2. RESEARCH PROBLEM
Effective manager must be able to lead as he is regarded as the leader of the project team. Without firm leadership, he would not be able to gain respect from the other consultants. Furthermore, without good leadership qualities, he would not be able to motivate his team to work towards the common goals of the project. Strong leadership is therefore a very important criterion for the manager.

3. EFFECTIVE MANAGER
There are managers in every organization. A good and perfect one is the manager who possesses good qualities. (Barry, T. R., 2000) proposes ten qualities that make a manager effective; these qualities include, inspiring a shared vision, good communicating skills, enthusiasm, team building skills, problem solving skills, empathy, and competence cool under pressure. Ability to delegate tasks among subordinates. It was further explained that these qualities ought to be practiced altogether before significant results can be seen. (Gates, B., 2004) also provided 10 top qualities that managers need to consider. Amongst these qualities are choosing a field thoughtfully, hiring carefully and having the will to fire lazy workers ,creating a productive environment, defining success, liking people and being a good communicator ,developing workers to do their jobs better ,building moral , taking projects your self , not making the same decision twice and letting people know whom to please. Gates explanations though differ from Barrys are all qualities that are expected to be carried out by managers in order to be effective.

4. LEADERSHIP VERSUS MANAGEMENT

There has been a lot of discussion whether project managers must focus on leadership or management in their companies. Leadership in itself provides a picture of authoritative characteristics. This is because, project managers will see themselves as power holders who will not like to participate in other works. However a project manager who is as a management based will like to be participative, this is one of the reasons why identify some tools that will help differentiate between project managers who are leaders and those who are managers. One of the tools included intense site reconnaissance. By this project managers who wish to be effective must be more conscious on the current developments on the site. This is because any inconvenience, problem or unexpected circumstances can be responded to accordingly. Another tool is to

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plan/execute. They explain that project managers must not only focus on planning issues in an organization but also they must focus on effective execution of the planning activities. This will differentiate them from being leaders or managers. The third tool, which is managing sub consultants, is one of the difficult ones amongst them. This is because, sub consultants can sometimes be stubborn and might delay some processes in project execution. Therefore effective project managers must know how to deal with them. The last tool proposed by (Brugger, W.E. & Gerrits, R. J., 2000) is quality control. Controlling the quality of projects is one of the characteristics that a project manager should exhibit if he/she wants to be truly effective. (Rimualdo, R., 2003) proposes that knowledge ability to stimulate interest and delivery of quality results are factors used to distinguish between leadership and management. He explains further that a project manager must have the knowledge to show enthusiasm and convey to the staff important information and also be able to organize the methods that follow systematically. This will make him/her an effective leader. Further more, an effective leader is differentiated from management if he/she has the ability to bring out the interest of people and to deliver quality results. Unearthing the potential in worker would also make the project manager achieve his/her results. The delivery of quality results is also another area explained by Rimualdo. This takes into consideration the ability to plan and carry out a good job; they would trust him and give him credibility.

5. BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCE
Behavioral characteristics are some major ways of looking at the qualities of effective leadership (Dawooud, A., Mahmood, A., & Abdelnaser, O. , 2005). A client Guide for ACP project (2002) identifies understanding and emphasizing of the point, experience and acknowledgement, experience and development, planning and thinking strategically. Working with trusted people are coordinating and managing identifying and understanding as well as knowing when to seek specialists advice. It was explained that. Even though the variables mentored above were more of characteristics of leadership, they related to the behavioral aspects in one way or the other. (Melymuka, K., 2000) also explains in her computer world article Born to lead projects that persuasion , generosity, vision , flexibilitys and humour are variables that are necessary in shaping the behavior of leaders . She further explained that managers must be able to persuade their subordinates, superiors and customers in an effort to achieve objectives. Being generous was another variable highlighted by Melymuka. Hence, effective manager must always strive to have a good and better vision for his company. This will shape his where behaviour as expected. Being flexible is a kind of behaviour effective managers can not do away with; therefore Melymuka proposes that managers must practice such behaviour with some sense of humour to provided desired results. Social scientists have provided insightful literature in the area of effective leadership that needs to be taken into consideration. (Hofstede, G., 1980) determines that culture varies along a number of dimensions that posses important

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implication for organizational structure and leadership practices. (Wright, H.R.N. and Aditya, R., 1997) refine and extended the research. They found that compressive surveys f cross cultural research was needed to look into leadership issues. However, despite the south in their research, it was concluded that practical knowledge and advice to assist leader in adapting to cultural constraints were very important. Looking into Malaysia, there is a colonial heritage, together with more recent foreign investment by Japanese and Western countries. This has led to modify traditional patterns of leadership and business management (Sin, T. T., 1999).

6. THEORATICAL FRAMEWORK
Functional Competences 1. Technical Knowledge 2. Management Knowledge 3. Communications Knowledge 4. IT Knowledge 5. Legal Knowledge 6. Business Knowledge Behavioural Competences 1. Social / Vocational Knowledge 2. Intraprofessional Knowledge

Effective Leadership

Independent Variable

Dependent Variable

Figure 1: Conceptual Model of the relationships between functional and behavioural competences, and the effective leadership.

7. RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
Based on the research problem and research objectives, the following hypotheses were developed: H1: There is a significant relationship between functional competences and effective leadership. H1A: There is a significant relationship between Technical knowledge and effective leadership. H1B: There is a significant relationship between Management knowledge and effective leadership. H1C: There is a significant relationship between Communication knowledge and effective leadership.

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H1D: There is a significant relationship between IT knowledge and effective leadership. H1E: There is a significant relationship between Legal knowledge and effective leadership. H1F: There is a significant relationship between Business knowledge and effective leadership. H2: There is a significant relationship between Behavioral competences and effective leadership. H2A: There is a significant relationship between social/ vocational knowledge and effective leadership. H2B: There is a significant relationship between intra-professional knowledge and effective leadership.

8. METHODOLOGY
Data for this study was obtained through structured questionnaire. Questionnaires were sent to a total of 50 of construction firms in Penang Island and Butterworth. Of these 30 were returned and analyzed.

9. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

9.1. SURVEY RESULTS

The response from the 30 respondents are analyzsed and discussed in the next few sub-topics. These cover the response on the functional competences i.e. technical knowledge, managerial knowledge, communication knowledge, IT knowledge, financial knowledge, business knowledge;and the behavioral competences i.e. social/vocational knowledge and intraprofessional knowledge. 9.2. FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCE

9.2.1. Technical Knowledge On the technical knowledge, respondents rated planning and scheduling skills as ranked 1, followed by basic knowledge in own field and quality control.
Items Planning and Sheduling Basic Tachnical Knowledge in own field Quality Control Productivity and cost control Mean 1.4667 1.5667 1.7333 1.7333 Std. deviation .6814 .5040 .6397 .6397 Rank 1 2 3 3

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Material procurement Technical Writing Plant Hire and management

1.8333 2.2667 2.5667

.9129 1.0148 1.0726

4 5 6

Table 1: The Mean and std. deviation of technical knowledge

Plant hire and management and technical writing was rated as the least important. Theis indicate that in order to be an effective manager in the construction industry, one must acquire planning and sceduling skills and then followed by learning basic knowledge in own field and quality control. 9.2.2. Managerial Knowledge Respondents rated decision-making and time management as the most important managerial knowledge for an effective manager, followed by strategic planning.
Items Decision Making Time Management Strategic Planning Negotiation Motivation and Promotion Mean 1.4000 1.5333 1.5667 2.1000 2.1667 Std. deviation .8137 .6288 .5040 1.1552 1.1167 Rank 1 2 3 4 5

Table 2: The Mean and std. Deviation of managerial knowledge

However motivation and promotion, and negotiation skills of managerial knowledge are rated as least important for an effective manager in the construction industry. 9.2.3. Communication Knowledge Presentation skills was rated as the most important communication knowledge for an effective manager, followed by report writing.
Items Presentation Report writing Public speaking General and Business Correspondence Mean 1.7333 1.7667 2.1000 2.333 Std. deviation .7849 .7739 1.0289 .9223 Rank 1 2 3 4

Table 3: The Mean and std. Deviation of communication knowledge

However, general and business correspondence skills was rated as the least important communication knowledge for an effective manager in the construction industry.

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9.2.4. IT Knowledge On the IT knowledge, project management software was rated as the most important IT knowledge, followed by the operating systems knowledge for an effective manager.
Items Project management software Operating systems Information systems and IT tools Database CAD Mean 2.2333 2.3667 2.4000 2.8667 3.1667 Std. deviation .8584 .6149 .8137 .8193 .7466 Rank 1 2 3 4 5

Table 4: The Mean and std. Deviation of IT knowledge

However, CAD was rated as the least important skills, and followed by the database skills in IT knowledge to be an effective manager. 9.2.5. Financial Knowledge On the financial knowledge Project Finance Arrangement was rated as the most important skills, and followed by establishing cash flows in financial knowledge (Table 5). Reporting systems was rated as the least important financial knowledge and followed by establishing budgets for an effective manager in the construction manager.
Items Project Finance Arrangement Establishing cash flows Establishing budgets Reporting systems Mean 1.4667 1.5667 1.7333 1.7333 Std. deviation .6814 .5040 .6397 .6397 Rank 1 2 3 4

Table 5: The Mean and std. Deviation of financial knowledge

9.2.6. Legal Knowledge In term of the Legal knowledge, general legal background was rated as the most important legal knowledge, followed by the health and safety issuess while, drafting contactors and industrail issues were rated as the least important.
Items General legal background Health and safety issues Trade unions and public authorities Preparation of claims and litigation Drafting contracts Industrial relations Mean 2.2000 2.2333 2.5000 2.5000 2.7333 2.7333 Std. deviation 1.0306 .8976 .9002 .7311 .9444 .7397 Rank 1 2 3 3 4 4

Table 6: The Mean and std. Deviation of legal knowledge

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9.2.7. Business Knowledge Chairing meetings was rated as the most important business knowledge, followed by public relations skills for an effective manager (Table 7). Marketing and sales was rated as the least important business knowledge, followed by the understanding of organisation for an effective manager in the construction industry.
Items Chairing Meetings Public Relations Understanding of organisation Marketing and sales Mean 1.4667 1.8333 1.9667 2.9000 Std. deviation .5074 .7915 .6149 1.0619 Rank 1 2 3 4

Table 7: The Mean and std. Deviation of business knowledge

9.3.

BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCE

9.3.1. Social/Vocational Self-confidence and decisiveness were rated asost important social/vocation skills, followed by commitment and interpersonal skills for an effective manager. However, flexible was rated as the least important social/vocational knowledge, followed logical and presentation skills (Table 8).
Items Self-Confidence Decisive Committed Interpersonal Proactive Puntuality Comprehensive Calmness Analytical/Investigative Presentation skills Logical Flexible Mean 1.4333 1.4333 1.6333 1.7000 1.7667 1.7667 2.0333 2.0667 2.0667 2.2000 2.2000 2.7000 Std. deviation .5040 .5040 .5561 .5350 .5683 .8172 .6149 1.0148 .7397 .9965 .8867 .9523 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Table 8: The Mean and std. Deviation of social/vocational knowledge

9.3.2. Intraprofessional Teamwork was rated as the most important intraprofessional skills, followed by conformity to professional norms for an effective manager. However, sensitivity to peers was rated as the least important intraprofessional skills, followed by collegiality for an effective manager in the construction industry.

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Items Teamwork Conformity to professional norms Public Relations Collegiality Sensitivity to peers

Mean 1.3667 2.1000 2.1333 2.6333 2.6333

Std. deviation .5561 .7120 .9371 .8087 .9643

Rank 1 2 3 4 4

Table 9: The Mean and std. Deviation of intraprofessional knowledge

9.4.

EFFECT OF BEHAVIORAL AND FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCE ON LE

Regarding Leadership effectiveness (LE), regression analysis was used to find out functional and behavioral competences have any significant effect on leadership effectiveness. Table 10 presents the result of regression analysis.
Variable Technical Knowledge Managerial Knowledge Communication Knowledge IT Knowledge Financial Knowledge Legal Knowledge Business Knowledge Social/Vocational Intraprofessional R2 F Sig.F Beta .296 -.301 .438 .513 -.177 -.008 .556 -.127 .899 = .89.4% = 18.783 = .000 T-ratio 1.704 -1.062 1.721 2.834 -.810 -.041 3.437 -.500 3.656 Sig.T .104 .301 .101 .010 .428 .968 .003 .623 .002

Table 10: Results of Regression Analysis

Based on the SPSS output, technical knowledge was found to have no significant effect on the leadership effectiveness at 5% significance level (sig t = .104). Therefore hypothesis 1A was not substantiated. Managerial knowledge was found to have no significant effect on the leadership effectiveness at 5% significance level (sig t = .301). Therefore hypothesis 1B was not substantiated. Communication knowledge was found to have no significant effect on the leadership effectiveness at 5% significance level (sig t = .101). Therefore hypothesis 1C was not substantiated.

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IT knowledge was found to be significant at 5% significance level (sig = .010) with a positive beta. This means that IT knowledge has significant positive effect on the leadership. Therefore hypothesis 1D was substantiated. Financial knowledge was found to have no significant effect on the leadership effectiveness at 5% significance level (sig. t = .428). Therefore hypothesis 1E was not substantiated. Legal knowledge was found to have no significant effect on the leadership effectiveness at 5% significance level (sig. t = .968). Therefore hypothesis 1F was not substantiated. Business knowledge was found to be significant at 1% significance level (sig. = .003) with a positive beta. This means that business knowledge has significant positive effect on the leadership. Therefore hypothesis 1G was substantiated. Social/vocational knowledge was found to have no significant effect on the leadership effectiveness at 5% significance level (sig. t = .623). Therefore hypothesis 2A was not substantiated.

10. SUMMARY
Hypothesis H1: H1A: H1B: H1C: H1D: H1E: H1F: H2: There is a significant relationship between functional competences and effective leadership. There is a significant relationship between Technical knowledge and effective leadership. There is a significant relationship between Management knowledge and effective leadership. There is a significant relationship between Communication knowledge and effective leadership. There is a significant relationship between IT knowledge and effective leadership. There is a significant relationship between Legal knowledge and effective leadership. There is a significant relationship between Business knowledge and effective leadership. There is a significant relationship between Behavioral competences and effective leadership. Accept/Reject Partially Accepted Reject Reject Reject Accept Reject Accept Partially accepted Reject Accept

H2A: There is a significant relationship between social/ vocational knowledge and effective leadership. H2B: There is a significant relationship between intraprofessional knowledge and effective leadership. Table 11: Summary of Hypothesis Testing

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11. CONCLUSION
In the literature it is revealed that an individuals manager is both inherited and shaped from the environment however, these genetic personality characteristics are altered somewhat by life experiences. Individual managers will not have the same behavior even though they are in the same culture. This difference in manger had lead to the conflict in decision due to their manager influenced them how to be effective manager. Leadership is one of the key interpersonal roles managers play in their organizations. Leadership is considered as an influence process. Followers let themselves are influenced by a person so long as that person is able to satisfy their job related needs. The effectiveness of a leader depends on the style of leadership. An effective leader should choose the style depends on the situation and demand. (Freitas, A. L., 1992) suggested that people wield power from one status in this case the position in organization; concrete resources the technology and tools; expertise the knowledge; self-confidence. This study confirmed that managers with IT and business knowledge, and intraprofessional skills will lead to effective management; as such managers should put effort to acquire these competences to discharge their responsibilities and tasks effectively. The research finding has shown that all managers surveyed basically agreed that IT knowledge and the business knowledge are the most crucial competences that should be acquired to become an effective manager in the construction industry. On the other hand intraprofessional knowledge of behavioural competences was found to be the most important for an effective manager. These indicate that managers need to perform under a structural boundary as against to the unstructured, selfactualization kind of environment. Thus it is important that managers in the construction industry tries to acquire the relevant IT and business knowledge, and intraprofessional knowledge to face the challenges in the industry. The challenge is then for managers to take a serious approach and some in-depth study on their organizational strength and weakness in the area of human resource and processes in order for their employees to flourish. Because often than not, as managers, we prefer to operate in our comfort zone and glide along rather than spend time looking for improvement. A participative leadership style need total commitment from managers as risk is involved when managers are being asked to trust their subordinate to have enough common-sense to do the right things and to keep the managers inform if things goes wrong. Therefore constant communications and continuous training is the key to employees development. On the other hand, managers may also attract and select staffs that are already inclined to see things their way. Nevertheless, none of the approaches can be forced on all the people all the time. The most effective approach is goalsetting, as it is based on the premise that intentions shape actions. If work goals are specific, and even though it is difficult, if they are accompanied by feedback on how well one is doing, managers performance is usually enhanced.

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REFERENCES
Barry, T. R. (2000). Top 10 Qualities for Project Manager. Brugger, W.E. and Gerrits, R. J. (2000). Effective project Management Equals Successful Military, Engineering, ABI/INFORM Global 42(11): 33. Carlson, J. G. (1989). Affirmative in Support of Researching The Myer-Briggs Type Indicator. Journal of Counseling and Development 67: 484486. Dawooud, A., Mahmood, A., and Abdelnaser, O. (2005). The Effectiveness of Leadership. Unpublished MSc Thesis. Gates, B. (2004). A Good Manager Has At Least 10 Good Qualities. Hofstede, G. (1980). Cultures Consequences: International Differences in WorkRelated Values, London: Sage Publications. Fiedler, F.E., (1987). New Approaches to Effective Leadership: Cognitive Resources and Organizational Performance, USA: John Wiley & Sons. Freitas, A. L. (1992). The Relationship between Leadership Style of the Principle and Teacher Readiness to Change in Elementary School. EDD thesis. University of San Francisco. Melymuka, K. (2000). Born To Lead Projects, Computerworld, 43(13): 62. Rimualdo, R. On Leadership, Business Credit, 105(8): 6. Sin, T. T. (1999). Managing Process in Bumiputra Society Malaysia In J. Putti (Ed.), Management Asian Context, Singapore: McGraw-Hill. Stewart, R. (1982). Choices for the Manager: A Guide to Understanding Managerial Work. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Wright, H.R.N. and Aditya, R. (1997). Cross-Cultural Research on Organizational Leadership: A Critical Analysis and Proposed Theory In P.C., Early and M. Erez (Eds.), New Perspectives on Internal Industrial/ Organizational Psychological, 1st ed: 535639, San Francisco: The New Lexington Press.

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