The Emotional Intelligence of Project Manager and the Project Success

Abstract

The massive failure of projects emphasizes the need to understand the factors that contribute to the project success. The projects of the construction sector in Pakistan also face difficulties of unachievable targets because of the lacking soft skills of the managers besides their technical competence. Therefore,this casual study is undertaken to check the influence of the project manager’s emotional intelligence on the success of the project in the construction sector of Pakistan. A sample of 228 out of 250 project managers (91% response rate) that work in those construction companies involved in construction projects responded, selected using convenient sampling technique. The data is analyzed using reliability study (Cronbach’s Alpha), descriptive statistics, Skewness-Kurtosis, correlation, and regression analysis. The results of the study explain that the dimensions of emotional intelligence including self-awareness and self- regulation of project managers are showing positive and significant impact on the success of construction projects. While the key finding of the study is that social awareness has insignificant impact evident that managers normally give more focus on technical and hard skills of their teams than knowing and sensing others’ feelings and perspective, and taking an active interest in their concerns. Construction industry and other project-based firms in Pakistan can take benefit from this research. Focusing on the significance of the emotional intelligence attributes and giving extensive trainings to the managers on soft skills can improve the ratio of the successful projects. The findings of the study strongly recommend soft skills training of the managers as well as the team. Further, a detailed investigation covering all the dimensions of emotional intelligence including empathy is directed for future studies.