The Influence of Leadership Style on Project Team Performance

Project team performance was examined as an effect of leadership styles in the IT, Construction and Consultancy sectors. A pragmatist mixed-methods approach was used to integrate quantitative and qualitative analysis to explore a greater wholeness of insight into effective leadership in a project-based organisation. Quantitative information was collected through fifty-one valid questionnaires' responses and was analysed using SPSS through descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis. Results were derived that the transformational and democratic styles were most utilized by project managers and highly correlated with team performance for projects. The regression model established that leadership styles formed part of the most significant predictors of project success, accounting for some 63% of the variance in team performance. Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed against Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis framework. The analysis produced ten overarching themes that emerge to show adaptive, inclusive, and emotionally intelligent leadership. Adaptability, open communication, cultural awareness, and motivation were cited by the interviewees as essential factors that foster team cohesion and project success. They further observed that organisational culture and team diversity were moderators of leadership effectiveness, and therefore, such strategies must target the contextual environment of organisations and team compositions. This study endorses transformational and democratic leadership theories and confirms situational flexibility project management theory. Project leadership encompasses combining directive and participative behaviours, emotional intelligence, and data-driven tools, which the present study recommends that should be used in leadership development courses. The study provides valuable empirical data for project management and leadership because it can link leadership styles with team performance outcomes and illustrate how diversity and culture affect the effectiveness of leadership in the dynamic world of projects. The study also contributes to the contemporary debate on evidence-led and emotionally intelligent leadership as fundamentally critical paradigms for project leaders today. Keywords: Leadership styles, project management, transformational leadership, democratic leadership, team performance, organisational culture, mixed methods, emotional intelligence.