Shared Leadership In IT Project Management: A Practice Survey

Abstract

In the management field today, shared leadership (SL) is considered a form of distributed leadership, conceptualized largely as working or functioning within a ‘team’ framework.  Yet, there seems to be sparse research on the application of shared leadership principles in the IT field, particularly project management practices.  To address this void in the literature, the current study was designed to determine the actual usage and assess the views of managerial-level practitioners toward SL.  To that end, a 12-item Likert-type instrument was developed that reflected attitudes, intent, and actual usage.  An E-mail response form was forwarded to a target sample of 250 IT project managers in the U.S.  Of these, 102 responded with completed survey data.  The independent variables in this study were gender, years in IT practice, and industry certification.  These project managers expressed overwhelmingly positive attitudes and confirmed wide usage of SL in work-based projects.  No significant differences, based on gender, years of experience, and certification were noted.  Overall, these findings support the efficacy of the SL model and team-based leadership styles.