CASE STUDIES

Research Report
Summary

Leadership role is the most important factor which keeps all employees motivated in a
workplace. Leader is the one who organize, plan, guide and monitor all areas of a project. In the
contemporary era of globalization, only those companies or businesses are successful which have
strong leadership and management skills. Without an effective role of a leader, whole project
could be deteriorated as all employees work under the command of leadership. A leader must
have certain qualities so that other employees could follow his orders. Likewise, management
skills in a company are equally important in this regard. In this report, the interconnection
between leadership and management qualities will be evaluated on the success of an
organizational project. For this end, case studies of Samsung and Nokia will be studied in detail.
Failure of galaxy note 7 is strongly attributed to the lack of leadership skills in this project.

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 Table of Contents

Summary....................................................................................................................................................1

1. Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3

2. Criteria to Select Case Studies..............................................................................................................3

2.1. Case study of Nokia..........................................................................................................................4

2.3. Case study of Samsung.....................................................................................................................4

3. Outcomes from Case Studies................................................................................................................5

4. Theories of Leadership and Project Management..............................................................................6

5.Recommendations...................................................................................................................................7

7. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................................7

8. References..............................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction

Role of leadership is the most important factor in the success of an organization or s business.
Leadership is a skill under which a person could guide subordinates to achieve a common goal.
A leader chalks out plans, organize strategies and monitor the whole project in the best way.
Likewise, he keeps motivated the whole team and bring coordination in all actions of a
team[CITATION Dav19 \l 1033 ]. There are several qualities of a good leader: he has good
communication skills, great experience and knowledgeable in his domain. Likewise, he must be
a quick learner and could do self-assessment [ CITATION Dav19 \l 1033 ] {Allen, 2016 #548}{Allen,
2016 #548}. Management skills are also important for an organizational project. It is the
manager who often manage all things surrounding a project. He chalks out financial plans and
keep everything in check. A project manager must have certain skills. These skills include but
are not limited to innovation, honesty, punctuality and responsiveness. Another quality, which
must be present in both group leader and a project manager is adaptability. They should change
their plans according to the changing environment or circumstances[CITATION hai16 \l 1033 ]. Role
of both qualities is essential for a project to be successful in the long-run. Any lacking on their
part could devastate the whole project or even whole company.

According to a theory of leadership, leaders must be chosen out of group members and for this
position, only those members should be considered who have best performance. A team member
is well-acquainted with other members, therefore he could assign them tasks according to their
qualities and capabilities[CITATION Ste11 \l 1033 ]. In this time of innovation and technology,
competitive environment prevails in the international market. Leader and project manager play a
great role in the success or failure or a project. Their decisions are the most important in a firm
because their command is followed by everyone (Gehring, 2007). This report will study some
case studies to substantiate the relationship between project success and leadership skills in a
company. Firstly, the success of Nokia will be analyzed. It would be discussed how it beat
Motorola and became world leader. However, it failed to win competitive advantage over Apple
and Google due to lack of leadership and management skills. Lastly, the project failure of
Samsung will be evaluated in detail[ CITATION phi14 \l 1033 ].

2. Criteria to Select Case Studies

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Project management and leadership skills are important for the success of every project.
Leadership skills have a great role in the successful accomplishment of a project. Likewise, good
project manager is also consequential for the achievement of success in any project. In this study,
case studies will be selected on the basis of management and leadership qualities in a project.
The impact of these fundamental skills will be analyzed on the success of failure of a project. To
enhance the understanding about correlation between success and leadership, two well-known
multinational telecommunication brands have been selected. Both case studies have reiterated the
importance of leadership and management skills to make an organizational project successful
(Northouse, 2018).

2.1. Case study of Nokia

NOKIA was introduced in the late nineteenth century and it produced a number of products in
the international market and these products include rubbers, tyres , paper and mobile phones. It
constructed a paper industry in the middle of 19th century. This paper mill was opened in Finland.
After 20 years, it initiated the production of mobile phones. First of all, it formulated its N-series
and more than 11 million copies of this series were sold around the world only within the time
span of a year. However, in the start of 21 st century its profits started plunging due to emergence
of better options in the international market. About 30 percent of its profit fell in 2007
(Himanshu, 2015) . This negative growth was attributed to the lack of leadership and
management skills in the company. After some years, the CEO of Nokia was changed. He was
expert in Microsoft business and helped company in curbing economic losses. In 2010, the
company started making progress, however there were massive job cuts in the
company[ CITATION wil13 \l 1033 ]. Lumia series of Nokia was launched with the cooperation of
Microsoft. These phones were a big success for Nokia and more than a million copies of this
series were sold around the world within fee months. But unfortunately, this boom was not
sustainable because Nokia failed to introduce innovation in this series. Other competitors were
offering better options with great innovation. Nokia’s leadership and management could
recognize the importance of innovation the failed in the long-run[ CITATION che18 \l 1033 ].

2.3. Case study of Samsung

SAMSUNG is an international company which was founded in North Korea around 1938. It is
one the most popular cellphone brands in the world. It’s first mobile phone was not successful

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because it could not fulfill the needs of customers. Consumer satisfaction was not achieved by
Samsung when it launched its first project in the middle of the 20 th century (Djatmiko and
Pradana, 2016). There were several hurdles in the future projects of Nokia as the company could
not achieve success for a long time. The international image of the company was deteriorated
due to its first failure. However, the leadership of Samsung soon contributed a lot in its progress.
Whole team of Samsung worked with consistency to improve their product’s quality. In 2016,
Samsung made the most sophisticated cellphone model but it failed due to a number of technical
flaws(Loveridge et al., 2018). Failure of this model was attributed to lack of proper management.
The stakeholders of the company could not consider technical issues of that model and Samsung
faced economic loss of millions of dollars. Both these companies are a big example of the role of
leadership in the success of an organizational project[ CITATION zin15 \l 1033 ].

3. Outcomes from Case Studies

The critical analysis of both case studies have make clear that leadership and its qualities are
important for the success or failure of a project. Likewise, effective management qualities are
also vital to make a project successful. In the first case study, it has been elaborated that Nokia
could maintain its competitive advantage only when it had strong leadership skills. Before the
arrival of 21st century, Nokia was the biggest cell phone brand in the world. It produced cell
phones with great qualities, therefore its cellphones were sold in millions within months.
However, with the passage of time, it could not maintain good leadership skills. Therefore, it had
to suffer huge economic losses in the first decade of the 21st century[ CITATION ghe12 \l 1033 ].
However, CEO of the company was changed and company curbed its losses. However, project
manager of Lumia series could not maintain innovation in this series. Other companies were
innovating their products and they were being liked around the world. This led to the failure of
Lumia project and this project could not survive more than 2 years. Likewise, was in the case of
the failure of Galaxy note 7, when Samsung launched this model in 2016 [ CITATION PAU19 \l
1033 ]. According to most of the leadership theories of the world, a leader must have qualities to
check opportunities in the way of a company and avail these opportunities at any cost. He uses
his management skills to curb any challenge to an organizational project. If the leadership of
both these companies have recognized this fact, they could prevent these project failures.
Moreover, it could be learnt from these study that steadiness, consistency, devotion and

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interpersonal skills are also important to gain success in a project. Likewise, the demands of
customers should be understood in order to design effective products. Only those products could
survive in the long run, which have customer satisfaction. (Offermann and Coats, 2018).
Likewise, management skills must be there to fulfil the demands of customers around the world.
A project manager must be able to change the outlook of a project according to circumstances
around the company (Lumpkin and Achen, 2018). Inspirational leaders are more likely to be in
position of inspiring their teammates and encouraging them to fulfil their duty with due
diligence. He motivate , help and support his team members to get optimal results for the success
of an organizational project (Bickle, 2017). 

4. Theories of Leadership and Project Management

Leadership theories are based upon proper research and they are outcome of the cognitive
experience of researches and philosophers. There are two types of leadership theories:

1. Situational leadership
2. Universal leadership

These theories are the most used leadership theories in the world (Simplilearn, 2020). Other
theories are the subdivision of these schools of thought. These theories could be defined as
below:

Great men theory

According to this theory of leadership, a good leader is always born. He has natural tendency to
become a leader. These natural tendencies could make him a effective leader in all situations
[ CITATION dic18 \l 1033 ]
Charismatic Theory
A leader or a project manager must have charismatic personality (Offermann and Coats, 2018).
According to this theory, there are some personal qualities of a leader which makes him
irresistible. These qualities are good communication skills, oratory skills, optimistic attitude and
positive personality. These qualities make a leader attractive to his teammates. Therefore, they
follow the command of such a leader more easily (Phillips and Phillips, 2016).

Behavioral Theory

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In this theory of leadership, behavior of a leader could bring huge changes in the attitudes of his
teammates[ CITATION jac17 \l 1033 ]

Contingency theory
According to this theory of leadership, there is no single way of leadership that could be
applicable in all situations. A leader must adapt to the changes in environment and this
adaptability keep him relevant[ CITATION kra15 \l 1033 ].

5.Recommendations

An effective leadership is essential to reduce the chances of failure in an organizational project.

A good leader can identify all loopholes timely and he manages to curb all shortcomings in an
excellent way. He is responsible of the success or a failure of project, therefore following
recommendations must be followed to make leadership effective.

Effective communication skills

A leader must possess effective communication skills so that he could disseminate a message in
effective way. He should allow freedom of expression to make a project successful (Oetzel,
2017).

In-depth Research 
Proper research must be done to know the environment of a place in which project is being
launched. Cultural factors must be taken into consideration[ CITATION wav \l 1033 ].
Job security and mutual trust
He should ensure that there is mutual understanding among all teammates so that trust could be
strengthened among them. Likewise, security of job of all teammates and employees must be
also ensured.
Public Trust
A leader or project manager must build positive relationship with customers so that they could
trust organization without any concerns.

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7. Conclusion

From this report, it has become clear that effective management and leadership skills play a huge
role in determination of the success or failure of a project. The examples of Samsung and Nokia
have further shed light on the importance of these basic skills. If a project manager and leader
has good communication skills and good knowledge of a project, the chances of failure are
reduced to a great extent.

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