The Relationship Between Leadership Styles And Employee Commitment At A Parastatal Company In South Africa

The influence of leadership style on employee commitment for the organisation has not been adequately addressed in the Parastatal companies in South Africa. A need therefore exists for greater understanding of the relationship between the leadership style and work-related attitudes (such as employee commitment) in order to develop a leadership style that will encourage organisational commitment. This study examined the relationship between leadership style, and employee commitment. Managers and their subordinates participated in the study. 348 questionnaires were distributed, 58 to managers and 290 to their subordinates. Final data for analysis included responses from 197 participants (34 managers, and 163 subordinates). 163 respondents rated their manager’s leadership behaviour on Bass and Avolio’s (1997) multi-factor leadership questionnaire (MLQ) and Meyer and Allen’s (1997) organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ). A series of statistical procedures were followed to analyse the data. Hypotheses were tested on two levels. First, correlations among managers and subordinates with regard to the MLQ, and then the MLQ versus the OCQ. Results revealed a weak positive yet significant relationship between transformational leadership and affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment. Transactional leadership had a weak but significant positive correlation with normative commitment, and Laissez-faire results indicated a weak negative yet significant correlation to affective commitment and normative commitment. Overall findings from this study suggest that leadership styles do play important roles in determining levels of affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. This study contributes to the bank of findings relating to the development of leadership and organisational commitment, not only in South Africa, but within the Parastatal organisations in particular.