IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR TO EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Nature and Background of the Study
From an Operational Approach, Harter (2000) stated that "Leadership is a social
form of at least two persons mutually oriented and invloved in a process by which one of them
(who assumes the role of the leader) can be said to change the other (who assumes the role of the
follower) in a certain direction. The goal of any organization is not only to survive, but also to
sustain it's existence by improving performance. In order to meet the needs of competetive
business, it must continually increase performance. Leadership can be defined as one's ability to
influence and motivate others to bring the best out in them. It focuses on encouraging individuals
or employees to add more to the overall effectiveness of an organization.
Moreover, a person who can bring out the change is the one who possesses the
ability to be a leader. A good leader is the onw who always looks out after others before himself
and is proactive. Proactive refers to a leaders tendency of being three steps ahead of others,
thinking of all the possibilities of a scenario. It's all about developing people, in turn helping
them to reach their maximum potential. In broadest sense, leadership is an art of motivating the
people to help achieve a common goal.
It needs to be remembered that leadership strategies/development is not only about the
organization need for grooming prespective leaders but also to do with the candidates themselves
showing the inclination and the aptitude to be groomed as leaders. In other words of Mary Parket
Follet "leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the
sense of power among those leaders".
Statement of the Problem
In an organization, it is very important to maintain the performance of everyone,
specially employees performance. According to Ratiu and Suciu (2013), 50% of business fail
because of the lack of performance, unengaged and unmotivated workforce. The general problem
of business is how we can improve the performance of the employees, what strategies leaders
suggest to improve the employees performance.
Objectives of the Study
Generally, the study aims to find out the impact of leadership behavior to employee's
performance.
Specifically, it aims to:
1. To study the types of leadership behavior.
2. To determine the importance and application of leadership and management strategies.
3. To study the relationship between leadership and employee's performance
Theoretical Framework
Leadership theories have been the source of numerous studies (Holland & Weather,
2013; Thomas, 2016). In reality and practice, many researchers have attempted to define the
qualities of authentic leaders that distinguish them from other leaders (Carter, 2013). Many
philosophers, researchers, and professors have developed many leadership theories (Agrusa &
Lema, 2012; Chinthala, 2014; Engelbrecht, Johnston, & Hooper, 2017; Weather, 2013).
Tauringana and Afrifa (2013) categorized theories using aspects that best define the leader.
The primary leadership theories are transactional theories and transformational theories.
Transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is a type of leadership
style that can inspire positive changes in those who follow (Carter, 2013). Transformational
leaders are energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate. Involvement in the followers’ achievement
process and helping every member of the group to succeed are important to transformational
leaders (Holland & Weather, 2013; Martens & Carvalho, 2017). Transformational leaders
stimulate and inspire followers to achieve outcomes, help followers grow and develop into
leaders, and recognize followers’accomplishments, rendering rewards where necessary
(Engelbrecht, Johnston, & Hooper, 2017; Grigoroudis, Tsitsirisi, & Zopounidis, 2013).
Transformational leaders create valuable and positive change in the followers with
the end goal of developing followers into leaders (Thomas, 2016). Thomas (2016) contended
that when leaders enact transformational leadership in its authentic form, they enhance the
motivation, morale, and performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms. These
include (a) connecting the followers’ sense of identity and self to the mission and the collective
identity of the organization, (b) being a role model for followers who inspires them, (c)
challenging followers to take ownership of their work, (d) and understanding the strengths and
weaknesses of followers in order to align followers with tasks that optimize their performance.
Transformational leadership theory is a theory of charismatic leadership that
assumes that leaders with certain qualities, such as confidence, extroversion, and clearly stated
values, are best able to motivate followers (Agrusa & Lema, 2012; De Silveira, de Lima, da
Costa, & Deschamps, 2017; Holland & Weather, 2013). Under transformational leadership, rules
and regulations are flexible and guide group norms, which provide a sense of belonging for
followers as they easily identify with the leadership and its purpose (Carter, 2013). The essence
of transformational leadership theory is that leaders transform followers through their
inspirational nature and charismatic personalities.
Transactional leadership. The transactional leadership style, as opposed to
transformational leadership style, starts with the idea that team members agree to obey their
leader when they accept a job (Khedhaouria, Montani, & Thurik, 2017; Yukl, 2012). The
transaction usually involves the organization paying team members in return for their effort and
compliance on a short-term task (Kasekende, Byarugaba, & Nakate, 2013; Storch, Makaroff,
Pauly, & Newton, 2013) To enhance efficiency, transactional leaders develop a mutually
reinforcing environment in which individual and organizational goals are in sync (Khan, 2013;
Martens & Carvalho, 2017).
The downside of the transactional leadership style is its chilling and amoral
aspects, which can lead to high staff turnover (Thomas, 2016). Transactional leaders promote
limited knowledgebased or creative work, which may lead to team members doing little to
improve their job satisfaction (Fasola, Adeyemi, & Olowe, 2013). Transformational leadership is
often the best leadership style to use (Kasekende et al., 2013). Most business leaders prefer the
transformational leadership style to the transactional leadership style.
Conceptual Framework
The classical management theory (CMT) and the transformational leadership
theory served as the conceptual frameworks for this study. Taylor (1911) developed CMT, and
the main tenet of the theory is that workers need tools for maximizing their efficiency and
output (Asaduzzama, Hossain, & Rahman, 2014; Ashar, Ghafoor, Munir, & Hafeez, 2013; Bajwa,
Yousaf, & Rizwan, 2014). Burns (1978) proposed transformational leadership theory, the main
tenets of which are enhancing the motivation, morale, and performance of followers through a
variety of mechanisms. Enhancement of motivation, morale, and performance involves (a)
connecting followers’ sense of identity and self to the mission and the collective identity of the
organization, (b) being an inspirational role model for followers, (c) challenging followers to
take greater ownership of their work, and (d) understanding followers’ strengths and
weaknesses (Burns, 1978).
Transformational leaders attempt to inspire trust, admiration, and respect in
followers (Bass, 1990). Bass identified three ways in which leaders transform followers: (a)
increasing their awareness of task importance and value, (b) getting followers to focus first on
team or organizational goals rather than their own interests, and (c) activating followers’ higher
order needs. Classical management and transformational leadership theories are useful
frameworks for understanding the importance of leaders involving employees in decision
making (Bakotic, 2014; Wooderson, Cuskelly, & Meyer, 2016). Taylor’s (1911) CMT and Burns’s
(1978) transformational leadership theory were appropriate and relevant in this study for
exploring employee performance improvement strategies.
Significance of the Study
Understanding leadership types and strategies can be applied to anything. This study will
benifits various sectors as follows:
To the Academe: Leadership can be a help to create a vision of academic success for
students.
To the Researcher: Researchers who has strong leadership skills helps establish a strong
bond to bond to create an effective innovation.
To the Practitioner: To all who practices a profession, this will guide them on how to
become a successful in their day to day practice specially when they will lead in the future.
To Organization: Leadership is fundamental to the organizational survival. This is one
of the most important aspects in any business organization as it determines the overall success.
To Gov't: Good leadership types and strategies is important to have a better society. It
helps to keep the institution from drifting.
To others: This study can inspirr everyone to achieve their very best.
Scope and Limitation of the Study
This study will focus only on the leadeship types that help improve the employees
performance. Another limitation focuses on the impact of effective leadership and strategies on
employees. I used a small sample size of 4 participant in short time frame of the study.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUIRE
As people have pursued an understanding of what makes an effective leader, their
attention has often moved to the key personal traits those leaders exhibit. Leadership can be
defined in different ways that it is hard to come up with a single working definitions. It is not just
a person or group of people in a high position, it is a process in which leader is indulged in
various activities to achieve any goal. Leadership is a commumication process of leader and
employee's on individuals so the effectiveness of an organization depends upon the effective
leader and that is a person who has an effective leadership styles.
Any business leaders who does not have strategies to improve employee's
performance may experience low employee productivity. Company leaders experience
challenges relating to employee performance, motivation, and retention whole striving to remain
profitable (chinthala, 2014, de Lima, de Costa and dechamps, 2017; International Factors Group,
2014) It indicates that company leaders consider their employee's is their most important assets
and have recognized the need to engage them toward the accomplishment of company goals.
For this study, I reviewed articles and peer reviewed articles relating to impact of
leadership strategies on employee's performance. The literature review included documents
relating to the types of leadership, leadership skills and strategies, employee's performance,
improvement strategies.
TYPES OF LEADERSHIP
Leadership is not only an inborn personality trait. There are different types of leader
such us:
1. Autocratic Leadership: The leaders who set their goals without considering the opinion of
their followers then command their followers to execute their assigned tasks with questions. This
approach often corresponds to a task centered style. This approach can be a faster and more
effecient than more discussive approaches.
2. Democtatic Leadership: Leaders participate equally in the process with their followers and
left the group work decisions. This type if approach involves in employee team in the decision
making.
3. Laissez Faire Leadership: This is called extremely laid back leaders, the leaders who left the
group takes whatever action it's members feel is necessary. This approach leads lower
productivity, but it may be the best where employee's are experts when it comes to creativity.
Build upon the weaknesses and strength of your leadership style by becoming more
effective and balanced at leading others. Having this kind of knowledge gives you direction to
develop goals and a training plan to become a better leader. The best leader are able to adjust
their style based on the situation they find themeselves. When you understand what type of
leadership you use, you can then work on improving your communication. You'll be able to
motivate and inspire your employees. You'll be able yo encourage your employess to meet the
goals and the needs of your company. You'll be able to handle challenge more effectively.
IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP and MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
The success of any business depends on effective leadership and management.
Leadership cannot be an assumed role; it involves going through proper selection of primary
position in the company before one earns the position. Business leaders need to know how to
choose the best employee's for their company. Understanding how employee's unique strategies
and traits contributes to the work environment and job description is important for leaders
seeking to coach and engage their employees.
Setting obejctives helps employees constantly provide feedback, which creates
accountability for all employees and develops a strong and collaborative environment.
Leaderships should understand the importance of demonstrating honesty and integrity in
communicating with any members of the team, specially to promote leadership role model traits,
among employees, friendly, neighbors and community members. Business leaders should be a
role model is for employees to emulate.
Leaders should not percieve the role of leadership as a burden but a privilege,
although being a leader comes with an incridible amount of responsibilities, effective leaders
understand that they set the pace for the rest of the company. Leader should be mindful of the
work ethic they promote to their employees because followers often mirror the acts of the leader,
which impact the way they treat their work. Business leaders should lead by example to improve
employee performance.
Leaders are influencial and leaders must persuade people to act toward their
goals. They should communicate the organizational strategy to employees for improved
performance. Business leaders should establish a well defined relationship with employees
because they are the best advocates for the company.
Communicating with employees can serve as a morale booster because can feel
thay are valuable to the company. It could build employee satisfaction and loyalty. Effective
communication between leaders and employees can improve business performance.
Communication primarily uplifts the morale of employees (Sani, 2013). Communication makes
employees feel they are part of the organization and this feeling of belonging could generate
employee satisfaction and loyalty to the company (Sani, 2013). Employers are becoming aware
that employee loyalty, commitment, and concern for quality depend on effective communication
(Spector, 2013).
Employee engagement has become a history of psychological strategies business
leaders use to encourage workers to produce maximum output (Khan, 2013; Nicholas, 2016).
Business leaders should engage employees to improve performance. Leaders engaging an
employee could make the person to perform better and more effeciently. Business leaders should
engage improve performance.
Employee performace depends on a number of factors such as employee
engagement, of factors such as employee engagement, employee satisfaction, compensation,
training and development and job security. Companies leaders need to have effective strategies
for perfomance improvement because the primary role of leaders is to increase and maintain
effective job management among employees in organization. It is revealed that job satisfaction
dictates the performance of employees. Business employees who are satisfied with their job tend
to improve business performance.
APPLICATION OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Employee plays a huge role in the business towards achievement of the company.
Without them, companies will not be able to grow and provide goods and services for
consumers. In the world of business, the best way to motivate employees is through monetory
compensation because they believed that it can increase in productivity and profitability to the
business.
Some strategies business leaders use to promote employee performance, some
ways leader could encourage employees to perform well include (a) encourage recognition,
employees want to feel appreciated they want to feel valued and it inspire them to do more
and better work (b) speak from the heart, when you communicate with your employee, you
should do it passionately when your going to speak about companys vision, mission and goals
(c) empowerment, the best leadership strategy to engage your team is to empower them, it's
something makes you feel a sense of self worth (d) promotion based on merits, company's
leader shod pay more attention to the employees and keep them motivated because they are
the most important asset of any business. Most company executives have a misconception that
employees care only about promotion and salary increase, but fail to realize that employees
desire recognition, appealing assignments, and increased feedback to stay engaged (Madu,
2014). Not engaging employees’ is a key concern to business leaders and this could result to low
morale within the workforce, and potentially deter the quality of work and retention of good
employees.
Many managers who believed in keeping and continuing to retain employees by
means of salary increase or financial incentives do not understand that monetary compensation is
an insufficient strategy for retaining employees (Kivila, Martinsuo, & Vuorinen, 2017; Sani,
2013). Employees are the lifeblood of their companies because they offer or give products and
services that define the businesses (Burns & Christie, 2013). Employees are the most important
asset of any business (Chiarini, 2016; Madu, 2014). Management theorist explained why
company leaders engage and motivate employees. Many business leaders have learned to rely on
monetary benefits as the sole strategy to engage and motivate (Sani, 2013). Monetary benefits
alone would not be enough to engage and motivate employees.
Regardless of what theories to consider, interesting work and employee
compensation are essential and significant links to higher engagement and motivation (Spector,
2013). Business leaders should emphasis on promotions, job enrichment, monetary, and
nonmonetary compensation (Khedhaouria, Montani, & Thurik, 2017; Wang et al., 2013).
Chapter III
METHODOLOGY
Research Design
For this study, qualitatative study was used that seeks in depth understanding of a
phenomenon. The purpose of this qualitative study was to find out the strategies that business
leaders use to improve employees performance. To meet the objectives of the study, case studies
design was used, where gives more emphasis on a full contextual analysis of fewer events or
conditions and their interrations.
Sampling
The sampling method used in this study is non probability sampling which is the
convenience sampling, a sampling procedure gives more freedom to the researcher to choose
sample whomever individual they find as participants. The target population for the study
consisted of a manager in a restaurant who had been in leadership position for the last 2 years. I
also selected 3 participants with knowledge about being a leader in a different organization in
school, a case study research design typically interviews a small number of individuals to obtain
deeper understanding about the issue. I focused this reseach on participants who were in
leadership and management position. I gained access to the participants through my phone via
messenger app, where I asked questions to them. A sample size of 4 participants was the
respondent of the study.
Data Collection
I was the primary instrument of data collection of data for the study. Data collection
involved individual, interviews with 4 participants. The interview contains questions designed to
answer the study. I planned to meet them but with our different location and the pandemic now
it's better to just stay at home. However, the participants we're able to answer all my questions
within 3 days of waiting. The data gathering includes interviewing through messenger app. To
ensure the comfort of the participants, I assured that their confidentiality by not listing their
personal information as what they want.
Research Instrument/Questionnaire
The instrument used in the study has a self developed questions. To achieve the depth
understanding of leadership, I used different questions with the manager and the 3 school
organizationl leaders, because they lead in the different sector.
Management Leadership Style
Encircle the number which describes your answer for each item.
Autocratic 6 5 4 3 2 1
Democratic 6 5 4 3 2 1
Laissez Faire 6 5 4 3 2 1
Self Developed Questions for School Org. Leaders
Check which best describes your answer for each item.
Questions Always Seldom Never
1. How long have you been in a leadership role?
2. Do you exactly do what task given to you?
3. Do you have freedom of Action?
4. Are you satisfied with your role?
5. Do you motivate your subordinates?
6. Do you get rewards for your your performance?
7. Have you ever feel burden teaching your
subordinates?
8. Do you treat your subordinates fairly?
Self Developed Questions for the Manager
1. How was the business growth?
2. How do you motivate your employees?
3. How was the behavior of your employees?
4. Does your leadership behavior helps your business growth?
5. How often you give incentives to your employess?
6. What strategies do you use to improve performance of your employees?
company?
7. What recommendations would you give regarding methods to improve performance of
employees?
8. What other related information could you share? do you assess the effectiveness of the
improvement strategies?
Demographic Profile
Variable Respondents
Gender Male 3
Female 1
Age Less than 20 1
21-30 3
Educational Background Senior High School 1
College Degree 3
Marital Status Single 3
Married 1
Position Manager 1
President of School Org. 3
Year Spent 1-2 years 1
1-4 years 3
Data Analysis
The type of data analysis used in the study is the qualitative analysis using inductive
approach. By obtaining the list of the participants, I sent them the purpose of the study, the first
step was asking them if it was okay to be interviewed gladly they said yes and after some time of
waiting for their response of my questions they come up with the same answers. As i compared
their response, I correlate the key themes emerged from the intervew and literature and the
conceptual framework. Data analysis helped correlate the engagement factors posited by Taylor
(1911) include (a) rewards and recognition (b) meaningful work and (c) opportunities and
advancement.
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