The Effect of Project Managers' Soft Skills to Project Performance: The Case of Selected Road Construction Projects in Addis Ababa
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Date
2022-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
A project manager needs a number of skills to manage a project effectively. Aside from the formal educations and experiences gathered, The project manager needs managerial skills which can be otherwise said as soft skills. The objective of this study is to assess the effect of project managers’ soft skills for the performance of road projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. More specifically, this study will seek to assess the practice of soft skills, evaluate the effect of project managers’ communication and project managers’ leadership skills used for the performance of road projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In order to achieve this study objective, descriptive and explanatory research designs were used. Convenience sampling was used to take the individual workers based on the variety of the type of jobs they perform. This study used both primary and secondary data. Based on the correlational results, this study showed the presence of positive and significant correlation between the independent variables and the dependent variable (Project Performance). More specifically, Communication, Leadership Skills, Critical Thinking, Positive Attitude, Teamwork Skills, and Emotional Intelligence have been found to be correlated positively and significantly with project performance of selected road projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The regression model showed that 72.6% of variance in project performance is due to soft skill dimensions of project managers (Emotional Intelligence, Positive Attitude, Critical Thinking, Leadership Skills, Teamwork Skills, and Communication) (p value < 0.05). Communication skills and leadership skills of project managers positively affect project performance. On the other hand, critical thinking, positive attitude, teamwork skills, and emotional intelligence were not found to have a significant impact on project performance of selected road projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This study recommends that project managers should focus on engaging employees in the decision making process, the leaders have to communicate their juniors positively and be supportive to them as much as possible, they have to provide responsibility to their subordinates, and employees should get individually considered attention.
Key Words: Project Performance, Soft Skills, Emotional Intelligence, Positive Attitude, Critical Thinking, Leadership, Teamwork, Communication Skills