Significant Leadership Qualities for Saudi Arabia Construction Leaders

Department of Building and Construction Engineering, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.

^* Corresponding author: df080116@gmail.com

Abstract

Construction industry involves diverse individuals and organizations which are all targeted to achieve a specific task within a specific time. It really needs strong leadership quality of construction leaders in managing construction projects successfully. Hence, this paper presents a study to uncover leadership qualities which should be possessed by construction leaders to ensure the success of the construction project. A survey was designed based on literature review and also the outcomes of qualitative exploratory study. It was conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire distributed amongst selected construction experts in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The selected experts should have more than 10 years’ working experience in Saudi Arabia construction industry. The survey managed to collect 31 valid responses. The collected data was analysed using Average Index (AI) method to rank the qualities based on the significant level of each of the leadership quality. It was found that 10 most significant leadership qualities required by construction leaders are self-confident, problem solving skills, willingness to take responsibility, honest and trustworthy, respectful with subordinates, sufficient experience, integrity, effective management skills, continuous quality improvement and reliable with subordinates. These identified significant leadership qualities should be considered by construction stakeholders in hiring new employees or retraining their existing workers for Saudi Arabia construction industry.