Example of leadership styles and job satisfaction research paper

Introduction

In today’s complex environment, one of the most happening academic researches is onto the area of leadership and its contributing in attaining employee satisfaction so as to enhance the overall performance of the organization. Given the ever changing market environment, organizations have to manage and retain employees and leadership has a key role to play in this. Leaders help in motivating employees and boosting their performance by making them satisfied with the kind of work they perform. Various aspects of leadership have been research by several scholars. Mintzberg maintains that leadership is attained by earning the respect and trust of the followers (Mintzberg, 2010). Other academic scholars have associated the leadership style with effective use of power for the enhancement of employees and the organization as a whole. Several others have maintained that leadership is directly related to certain practices and procedures dedicated to individuals working in an organization. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the styles that leaders display in order to influence employees to positively perform and have a favourable attitude towards their job (Lian et al. 2011).

Some of the most common reasons leading to stress and dissatisfaction of employees emanates from the type of job which is performed by personnel. This is especially relevant for those which involve interpersonal employer employee relationships. Scholars have observed that an adverse leader member association in the organization unfavourably impacts the level of satisfaction attained from performing a particular task and at extreme cases may lead to personnel to leave their jobs (Madlock, 2008).
There are several leadership styles and approaches which have been analysed in order to find out their contribution in enhancing job satisfaction and employee motivation. However, transactional and transformational leadership styles have been widely researched for their contribution in enhancing job satisfaction. Organizations use transactional leadership styles by providing appraisals to employees by means of pay hike, recognition, career growth for excellent performers and taking coercive action for poor performers. In transaction leadership style, there are agreements for providing rewards and benefits to employees performing excellently. On the other hand, transformational leadership style is associated to enhance job satisfaction as leaders instil a sense of gain and pride, trust and respect, mission and vision in the minds of the followers. According to scholars, transformational leadership style helps in enhancing the moral values and attitudes of the subordinates (Mulla & Krishnan, 2011).

Transactional leadership style

There are certain situations in which the transactional style of leadership helps in motivating and attaining job satisfaction. In other words, the transactional leadership style has a lot to do with the exchange between a superior and subordinates. The two main tenets of transactional leadership style is management by exception and contingent rewards. Academic scholars have associated transactional leadership style to fulfil aspired results of the expectation of subordinates and the interest of the superiors by involving certain commitments entrenched by the qualities of mutual respect and trust. This style of leadership has also been associated to contribute in the aptitude of leaders in recognizing the desires and needs of subordinates and displaying the methods to attain the subordinates’ needs and desires and thereby contributing to enhance the level of job satisfaction and employee motivation. In fact, effective transformational leaders takes care of the wellbeing of their followers by providing conditional incentives and bonuses, promises and honours for employees who have successfully and efficiently attained in satisfying certain commitments as per the aspirations of leaders in their organization. Academic research has been conducted in determining the contribution of transactional style of leadership with employee performance and leader member exchange theory. The outcome of the study has observed that transactional leadership style helps in favourably predicting the level of satisfaction attained by an employee by performing a certain job. Further academic study conducted on the influence of transactional leadership style and job satisfaction in the military platoon of a particular firm had determined that such kind of leadership style helped in enhancing job satisfaction and employee performance. Other scholars have associated transactional leadership style in deterring the performance of employees if compared with laissez faire and transformational style of leadership. This is mainly because this style of leadership motivates and enhances job satisfaction only up to a particular level as it is related by gaining extrinsic awards and rewards and evades coercive action (Awamleh, Evans & Mahate, 2005). Transactional style of leadership is mainly applied and is successful for organizations following a bureaucratic process. Here, employees are provided promotions, bonuses and rewards for high performance and punitive measures are taken in the form of memos, verbal and written warnings, and demotions for employees displaying poor performance.

Transformational leadership style

Transformational style of leadership is one which helps in bringing out favourable and valuable transformation in subordinates. Transformational leaders are those who emphasizes subordinates to be harmonious, build and enhance team work and team support and overall aims for the welfare of the organization. The four main tenets of transformational leadership style are intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, motivational inspiration and charisma. Such leadership style emphasizes on organizational interactions with respect to values, cultures, vision, service, teamwork and organizational development. Transformational leadership augments job satisfaction due to its innovative, supportive and productive nature. Most scholarly research has associated enhanced job satisfaction with transformational style of leadership. In fact, scholars have further argued that one of the best indicators of job satisfaction and heightened productivity is witnessed by following transformational style of leadership (Raja & Palanichamy, 2011). Transformational leaders also act as mentors wherein proper advice is provided to followers in order to attain predetermined organizational objectives. Previous research has further witnessed that subordinates working under a person practicing transformational leadership style are committed and motivated and this helps them to attain enhanced satisfaction in their jobs. Scholars have also observed that in particular industries like hospitals, military, engineering, education and some types of business enterprises transformational style of leadership effectively augments job satisfaction than transactional leadership style. Another important consideration to linking leadership style and job satisfaction is the role played by culture. In certain settings dominated by bureaucratic culture and power distance, autocratic leadership style is the most effective. However, in organizations which does not have bureaucratic culture and power distance, transformational style is most effective as it empowers and motivates employees thereby leading to augmented levels of job satisfaction. Academic studies linking job satisfaction and transformational leadership style has observed that the use of inspiration, motivation, individual consideration and charisma by superiors helps in receiving favourable reactions from subordinates. Such transformational emotions help in stimulating the augmented level of subordinate aspirations and thereby lead to enhanced job satisfaction. The attention provided by superiors is reflected and transmitted in the general attitude of the employees towards conditions at work and the type of work performed by them. This leads to enhanced job satisfaction and facilitates productivity and job performance (Paracha et al. 2012).
In certain organizations having a controlled environment and structured tasks, transformational leadership helps in enhancing job satisfaction rather than transactional leadership. This is because; transformational leadership is a key contributor to enhancing performance and satisfaction. This is especially true for organizations which provide the employees to conduct routine tasks and hence mere promotions, bonuses, rewards and recognition does not help in appealing to the higher order aspirations of the employees. In such environment, only transformational leadership style helps in augmenting job satisfaction.

Combination of transactional and transformational leadership styles

Empirical evidence has observed that superiors practicing transformational style of leadership needs to display transactional style in order to augment leadership effectiveness. This does not imply that transformational leadership style is to be used for substituting transactional leadership style. Scholarly evidence, has observed that leaders effectively using a combination of transformational and transactional leadership styles has successfully and effectively attained aspired objectives. In other words, a mixture of both styles help employees to attain promotion, bonuses, rewards and recognition and at the same time get empowered and have additional responsibilities so that the employees is provided a sense of being valuable to the organization. This helps in enhancing the self esteem of the individual and thereby helps in augmenting the level of commitment and satisfaction attained by performing a job.

Conclusion

Studies conducted linking the leadership style and job satisfaction has observed that employee motivation, performance and job satisfaction changes depending on the style of leadership and these changes depending on situations. Certain organizations having a bureaucratic process and systems attain enhanced success by practising transactional leadership styles. However, most organizations are switching over to practicing transformational style of leadership as this leadership style believes in empowering and providing additional responsibilities to employees. It, in turn, motivates employees by triggering their higher order needs and thereby helps to motivate and enhance their level of job satisfaction. In most change management situations, transformational leadership style is followed as it helps in smoothing the transformation in processes, systems, technologies and employees and also enhance the job satisfaction, employee engagement and employee motivation. The usage of the leadership style should be applied after careful analysis and consideration of certain demographic and cultural factors which helps in shaping the values and attitudes of employees. Hence, superiors must liaise with human resource personnel and managers to design and implement certain policies and process which may reflect the employee attitudes and accordingly design and practice a particular leadership style which helps in enhancing the job satisfaction of employees. This is because; various studies have found that both transactional and transformational styles of leadership help in augmenting job satisfaction. This is because diverse leadership style factors help in impacting several aspects linking the job satisfaction of employees. These may further impact the job performance and employee motivation and hence leaders and superiors should exercise diverse leadership styles depending on the situation. In most cases, a combination of transactional and transformational leadership style has proved to bring about enhanced satisfaction in job. Hence leaders should analyse the behaviours and traits of employees and accordingly devise a combination of both transactional and transformational leadership styles so that it helps in augmenting the level of job satisfaction.

References:

Awamleh, R., Evans, J. & Mahate, A. (2005). A Test of Transformational and Transactional Leadership Styles on Employees’ Satisfaction and Performance in the UAE Banking Sector. Journal of Comparative International Management, 8(1), 3 – 19.
Lian, H., Brown, D., Tanzer, N., & Che, H. (2011). Distal charismatic leadership and follower effects: An examination of Conger and Kanungo’s conceptualization of charisma in China. Leadership, 7(3), 251-273.
Madlock, P. E. (2008). The link between leadership style, communicator competence, and employee satisfaction. Journal of Business Communication, 45(1), 61 – 78.
Mintzberg, H. (2010). Shifting the trajectory of civilization. Oxford Leadership Journal, 1(2).
Mulla, Z., & Krishnan, V. (2011). Transformational Leadership: Do the Leader’s Morals Matter and Do the Follower’s Morals Change?, Journal of Human Values, 17(2), 129–143.
Paracha, M. U., Qamar, A., Mirza, A. Hassan, I. & Waqas, H. (2012). Impact of Leadership Style (Transformational & Transactional Leadership) On Employee Performance & Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction” Study of Private School (Educator) In Pakistan. Global Journal of Management & Business Research, 12(4).
Raja, A., & Palanichamy, P. (2011). Leadership styles and its impact on organizational commitment. The Journal of Commerce, 3(4), 15-23.