Effects of Authentic Leadership, Behavioral Integrity, and Project Governance on Project Performance

Abstract

While literature indicates that leadership plays an important role in project management and impacts project performance, it remains unclear what characterizes an effective leadership style in project management. Drawing on authentic leadership, behavioral integrity, and project governance research, and using cross-sectional data from multiple industries, we propose and test a leadership performance model to examine how authentic leaders and leaders with behavioral integrity affect their project team’s performance. We find that authenticity and behavioral integrity in a project manager enhance project performance, and that project governance mediates the relationships between leader authenticity and project performance, and between leader behavioral integrity and project performance.