A Peaceful Evacuation: Building a Multi-Project Battalion by Leading Upward

A Peaceful Evacuation: Building a Multi-Project Battalion by Leading Upward

Billy Williams III

Dr. Paul Richardson

Project Management Leadership

October 28, 2013

A Peaceful Evacuation: Building a Multi-Project Battalion by Leading Upward

Leadership is an imperative component of project management; in order for any project to be successful a strong leader needs to be appointed as the head of the project. The importance of leadership in project management can be seen in the case study, “A Peaceful Evacuation: Building a Multi-Project Battalion by Leading Upward”. The case study revolves around the leadership and strategy of Lieutenant Colonel Yaron and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel during the disengagement and evacuation of Israeli settlement in the heart of many Palestinian populations near the Gaza Strip. Each commanding officer had a different kind of leadership style which faced many difficulties and was advantageous for the process. This paper will look to compare and contrast the leadership styles of both Lieutenant Colonels Yaron and Daniel during the evacuation process. Different leadership styles during the enactment of a project, even if it is a militaristic one, impacts the progression of the project and its management in many ways.

Lieutenant Colonel Yaron has a very transformational leadership style which is prevalent throughout the majority of the case study. A transformational leadership style in highly depend on high levels of communication between management in order to meet and achieve the set goals for the project. With this kind of leadership style, leaders usually motivate their employees and enhance their project’s productivity and the employees’ productivity and efficiency through communication and high visibility. With this style of leadership, it is highly required that there is involvement of to meet the set goals or aims. Leaders, with this type of leadership style, mostly focus on the big picture within an organization and hand over smaller tasks to the team in order for the goals and aims to be accomplished. An example of just leadership style is seen when Yaron encouraged, “the battalion’s company commanders to initiate ongoing meetings with their soldiers” (Laufer et al., 2012, p.157). This show Lt. Col. Yaron’s transformational leadership style as he believed this evacuation process to be somewhat of a personal deal in which it was necessary that soldiers should interact with the higher management in order to get the feel of the project. Another two pieces of evidence suggest the method of Lt. Col. Yaron’s leadership style, this is seen when Yaron requested an immediate meeting with a Brigadier general. The Lt. Col. Yaron asserted that if