We look into the interaction of the project manager’s leadership style with project type, and their combined impact on project success. We aim to show that different leadership styles are more likely to lead to a successful outcome on different types of project. A recently developed integrated model of intellectual, emotional and managerial competence (IQ, EQ, MQ, respectively) is used to identify project managers leadership styles. A web-based questionnaire was used to determine the leadership style of project managers and relate that to the success of their most recent projects. These are related to project types, using a recently developed categorization system for projects. These quantitative results are validated against qualitative results obtained using semi-structured interviews of managers responsible for assigning project manager to projects.

As part of a recent leadership conference at my university, undergraduate student leaders invited a poet and hip-hop artist as the keynote speaker. To the surprise of many, the artist spoke almost entirely about how he didn’t know anything about leadership and didn’t want to know about it, how he hated leaders, and how he didn’t trust anyone to be a leader, especially those who proclaimed to BE leaders. Adding more shock to the keynote, he heavily peppered the speech with disturbing profanity. The response to his speech was dismay from the administration, astonishment from the faculty, and great enthusiasm from the majority of the students. Those students resonated with his antileadership message, even though they had voluntarily attended the day-long conference designed to develop their leadership skills. The event left me struck by the paradox of our students’ fascination with this “notleader” at the same time they were voluntarily attending a leadership conference designed to build their leadership skills.

Large-scale, long-term technological programs funded by government are extraordinarily difficult to begin, maintain, and complete. They must negotiate not only technical, but also political hurdles. International connections add to the complexity. This paper analyzes the course of the International Space Station (ISS) from the perspective of the NASA administrator. The roles of James Beggs, Dan Goldin and Sean O’Keefe are discussed as illustrative of how top federal executives can influence such programs. Much depends on when in the program's life cycle an administrator happens to serve and how long he or she serves. There are times when major decisions are possible, and the course of a program set for years. However, these strategic decisions also require tactical choices along the way. The function of the NASA administrator is to successfully harmonize the political environment and technical realities of a huge program like ISS. Administrators influence the birth and execution of a program through choices they make, resources they acquire, and coalitions of support they build for the program. As a program like ISS extends over many years, program success requires NASA administrators to move a technological enterprise forward, rather than to let it drift or be terminated.