Rethinking leadership in megaprojects. Results from a preliminary investigation

The purpose of this paper is to find out leadership lessons from megapro- ject through the life stories of two managers involved in managing teams in a megaprojects’ setting (Clegg, Sankaran, Biesenthal and Pollack, J., 2017; Flyvbjerg, 2014). The focus of our analysis is to discover leadership traits and principles that the project leader applies to achieve his project and com- pany’s aims. The two managers are both engaged in projects of the railway sector even if with different perspectives. The projects that they follow take place in an international scenario and in a multicultural and multi- stakeholders’ environment. In the paper a narrative inquiry approach apply- ing thematic analysis is followed to grab lessons learnt through the two managers’ experience in a megaproject context. Narratives are collected di- rectly from megaprojects managers through interviews. Organization studies have used the narrative analysis that a few authors started also to apply to project management research. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the