Coordination through the Socio-Cognitive Space

This chapter addresses the coordination between the project manager and project team members during balanced leadership. This coordination takes place through a socio-cognitive space (SCS), consisting of the joint understanding between the project manager and project team about (a) the shared mental model for project execution (i.e., skill needs, ways to collaborate, and the understanding of the context of the project); (b) the currently empowered leader; and (c) the level of efficacy of the empowered leader. Then the content of the three SCS dimensions in projects with different project management methodologies is reviewed. These differences uncover the ontological differences underlying balanced leadership in different types of projects. The chapter finishes with a quantitative assessment of horizontal leadership’s relative impact on project success and its mediation by the SCS, showing the relative importance of the three concepts for project performance.