Leadership Quality for Malaysia Construction Leader to Steer a Success Construction Project

Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Johor, Malaysia

^a Corresponding author : nurain_ngah@yahoo.com

Abstract

Issues that dominate the construction industry for the long time such as time overrun, cost overrun, quality of construction and also safety during the construction process are difficult to resolve because of several factors involved which amongst them are leadership quality in the industry. Solving these issues can make the industry more sustainable in nature. This paper presents the need of leadership quality among construction parties involved to steer a construction project successfully. Literature work found that 11 leadership qualities to ensure construction project success. From the frequency analysis, five most dominant leadership qualities are team building, communication skill, visioning, planning & strategy skill, and decision making. Beside the literature, this study also seeks an opinion from a senior leader of a successful construction company regarding the need of these qualities amongst parties to resolve the construction issues. The results from an interview session indicate that he fully agreed with the need of all the qualities in the construction industry. This shows that there is a strong relationship between solving the issues with the leadership quality in ensuring construction project success. These qualities should be further investigated to acquire a better representation of leadership quality in resolving construction issues for Malaysia construction industry.