Does Leadership Styles affect Employee Motivation and Performance: An Exploratory Perspective?
Prof (Dr) Vijit Chaturvedi,
Amity Business School,
Amity University,
Sector 125, Uttar Pradesh
vchaturvedi@amity.edu
Aryan Khanna,
Amity Business School,
Amity University,
Sector 125, Uttar Pradesh
khannaaryan0072@gmail.com
Abstract
The complex relationship between leadership styles and their effects on workplace motivation and productivity is the subject of the current investigation. This paper aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by pulling together recent studies, exploring several leadership philosophies, and evaluating their distinct impacts on employee motivation and production. To understand the interconnected nature of performance, motivation, and leadership, the study begins by providing a theoretical grounding in these concepts.
The unique characteristics, core principles, and potential effects on employee motivation and output of each style are examined. The study also looks at how different leadership ideologies influence employee motivation. This study's methodology includes a comprehensive literature review that draws on theoretical frameworks and empirical data from a variety of sources. This study employs a systematic methodology to compile important results and establish commonalities among investigations.
Leadership styles, employee motivation, and performance are all intricately related, and this technique helps us understand that link better. Management and organisational behaviour scholars and practitioners can glean useful information from the study's findings. By elucidating the distinct impacts of various leadership styles on employee engagement and performance, this research has real-world consequences for leadership development, organisational design, and HRM initiatives.
Keywords -Employee Motivation, Performance, Leadership styles, Leadership effectiveness.
Introduction
The duties of a leader are universal. Whether one is an executive, manager, sports coach, or teacher, leadership is all about getting others to work together to accomplish more than any one person could do alone. This changes leadership from an identity trait to a set of behaviours. There are many leaders who do not have formal positions of authority, and there are also some powerful people who are poor leaders. Their actions, rather than their words, inspire faith and passion. Additionally, one can learn to be a leader. It is not innate to human beings. At its core, there are mentalities that give rise to measurable actions that yield measurable outcomes.
Leadership is applied in various contexts and ways. However, four types of actions account for 89% of effective leadership, according to a McKinsey review of scholarly literature and a survey of more than 200,000 people in 81 companies throughout the globe indicated from support to seamless work function all are important.
But executives still need to keep the top performers on staff if they want to reap the benefits of training and development programmes and other investments in them. Leaders in today's hostile business environment must steer their organisations to gain a competitive advantage.
The second function is employee performance. Each employee's performance on the job can be inspired and improved by the boss's actions and skills. A leader's approach to leading and motivating their team members may be shaped by the culture of the organisation. Attaining organisational goals requires leaders to exert influence over subordinates. Consequently, the outcomes of work and the completion of tasks are affected by a leader's activities. This means that a leader's approach is critical for increasing output from all employees. The success or failure of a company is heavily dependent on the performance of its employees.
In contrast, Transactional Leadership, characterized by clear expectations, rewards, and punishments, relies on extrinsic motivation. While effective in achieving immediate compliance and meeting specific goals, this style may inadvertently limit employee ownership and initiative, potentially hindering long-term performance and stifling innovation.
Servant Leadership, a style that prioritizes the needs and growth of employees, fosters a collaborative and supportive environment. This approach emphasizes the importance of leaders serving their teams, resulting in a sense of responsibility and ownership among employees. The abstract investigates how this style leads to increased motivation, engagement, and ultimately, improved performance within the organizational framework.
Autocratic Leadership, marked by control and directive decision-making, is effective in achieving efficiency in routine tasks. However, this style may stifle creativity, autonomy, and intrinsic motivation among employees, potentially resulting in dissatisfaction, decreased performance, and heightened turnover.
Laissez-faire Leadership involves minimal supervision and control, granting employees autonomy to manage themselves. While suitable for highly skilled and self-motivated teams, this leadership style may lead to confusion and a lack of direction in teams lacking self-management skills, ultimately resulting in decreased performance.
Mastery, another psychological mechanism explored in this abstract, focuses on leaders who provide opportunities for growth, development, and learning. Transformational leaders, in particular, enhance intrinsic motivation by fostering a sense of mastery and competence among their teams.
Purpose, articulated through a clear and inspiring vision, is examined as a motivational driver. Transformational leaders, with their ability to connect individual tasks to a larger purpose, enhance intrinsic motivation by fostering a sense of meaning and contribution among employees.
Psychological Safety, cultivated by leaders who create an environment of trust and respect, emerges as a critical component influencing motivation and innovation. Servant leaders, by prioritizing the well-being of their teams, foster psychological safety, allowing employees to take risks, experiment, and learn without fear of repercussions.
Creativity and innovation are evaluated as performance indicators influenced by leadership styles. Styles that encourage autonomy, experimentation, and risk-taking, such as Transformational Leadership, are found to lead to a more innovative and creative workforce.
This, in turn, fosters superior performance through novel solutions and approaches.
Enhanced Engagement and Motivation: Skilled leaders encourage and excite their groups. Higher levels of engagement may result from this, encouraging workers to put more effort and passion into their work. Leadership philosophies that emphasize growth and include staff members in decision-making, such as transformational or democratic leadership, can be very helpful for employee motivation.
Increased Job Satisfaction: Managers who cultivate a happy workplace and show appreciation for their staff members typically experience increased job satisfaction. This might result from servant leadership or other supportive leadership philosophies in which the team's welfare is given first priority by the leader. Poorer performance can result from dissatisfaction, which is frequently brought on either authoritarian or laissez-faire leadership.
Trust and Psychological Safety: Workers who have faith in their managers are inclined to take chances, exercise creativity, and seek assistance when necessary. Authenticity, openness, and empathy are the building blocks of trust for transformational and servant leaders. Because of this trust, workers are more comfortable confessing their errors and growing from them in a psychologically secure setting.
Decreased Stress and Burnout: Employees may experience stress from micromanaging or having imprecise expectations. Burnout is a possible outcome of authoritarian attitudes. Better performance can result from supportive and motivating leadership philosophies like coaching or servant leadership, which can help lower stress and enhance wellbeing.
Enhanced Creativity and Innovation: By granting staff members greater freedom and encouraging them to try out novel concepts, some leadership philosophies, such as transformational or laissez-faire leadership, can boost creativity and innovation.
Employee motivation can be defined as the degree to which your team members approach their work with a sense of purpose, drive, and innovation. It affects practically every facet of your company, for better or worse. Employees that are truly inspired to succeed not only increase output but also serve as role models for their coworkers. Disengaged employees do the bare minimum to get by, and they're more likely to look for work elsewhere if their current employer can't keep their interest.
Leadership is the centre of organisational management. Earlier it was mentioned that the leader's actions greatly affect the organization's performance. Without strong management from the top, the company will have a hard time succeeding. A division or organisation can be governed by a leader who effectively influences their people. Managing people isn't an easy task. Leaders must understand the power they have over their people. Leaders have the power to stimulate or demoralise their teams depending on how they behave. Michael (2008) asserts that a firm can ensure its competitive edge by retaining its key workers for as long as possible.
Productivity in the workplace is essential to any business's survival. Employees are the company's most precious resource, and industrial units give special consideration to and opportunities for advancement to individuals with technical skills. Having competent and hardworking workers is crucial for achieving high-quality output since the company's success hinges on their ability to satisfy production goals. To keep production quality high, the garment industry also needs talented and skilled workers.
What is Job satisfaction?
Job satisfaction is an intangible metric that is defined as the positive emotions you experience from doing your job or just being in the office. As a standard, job satisfaction surveys are now found in most workplaces, as top organisations try to measure this emotion.
The strenuous nature of the labour, which tests employees to their limits. A level of comfort (advanced scheduling, short travel times, and access to relevant digital resources). A lot of praise from the higher-ups and employees within the company. Pay that is competitive with the market and enables workers to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, as well as the promise of career advancement that meets their individual development objectives.
The rigorous requirements of the job force employees to test their boundaries. Flexibility in scheduling, short travel times, and easy access to relevant digital resources all contribute to a level of convenience. A lot of praise from the higher-ups and employees within the company. Pay that is competitive with the market and enables workers to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, as well as the promise of career advancement that meets their individual development objectives.
An astonishing 84% of millennials are currently employed in what they call their "dream job," as revealed in a survey conducted by Udemy among over 1,000 current American employees. Over half of baby boomers agree. Considered as a whole, millennials are pleased with the work environment, which includes remote work opportunities, flexible schedules, and business support for professional development.
The work satisfaction statistics were biased toward men, according to an Udemy poll. Satisfaction with flexible scheduling, remote work, and staff development spending varied by at least 10 percentage points.
Literature Review
A mediated moderation model - The results show that the association between innovative behaviour of employees and entrepreneurial leadership is mediated by intrinsic drive and trust in leaders. Against our expectations, the association between intrinsic motivation and trust in leaders and entrepreneurial leadership was not moderated by leader-member exchange (LMX). Our findings have significant ramifications for hospitality organizations that are funding innovation initiatives and trying to figure out how to motivate their staff to be creative thinkers. Hoang etal, 2022
Job satisfaction and organizational commitment influence transformational leadership on employee performance - This study discovered a strong direct relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment as well as work satisfaction. But if organizational commitment gets in the way and transformative leadership can't directly affect work performance, it can't have a major effect on output. Eliyana et al., 2019
Managing hospitality employee cyberloafing: Empowering leadership roles- This article discusses hospitality employee cyberloafing in the context of leadership empowerment and offers practitioners fresh perspectives on how to handle the issue in light of the connection between employee power distance and leadership empowerment. Peng et al., 2023
Managing negative emotions, from failed entrepreneurial projects: When and how can supportive leadership help employees? - We show through path analytic modelling that the negative impacts of recalled unpleasant emotions from past project failures on employee work satisfaction, and through job satisfaction, on employee performance, can be mitigated by perceptions of supportive management leadership conduct. But as the project falters, the advantages of encouraging management leadership conduct gradually diminish. Patzelt et al., 2021
Human resources are the primary supporting component of health care (HR). A leader in the organization must be able to establish a harmonious integration with his subordinates in order to create positive motivation that will lead to the maximal intention and effort (performance), supported by organizational facilities. In addition, this integration needs to support subordinates' work passion, collaboration, and direction. An examination of the six articles showed that just one concluded there was little to no effect, while the other five all reached the same conclusion—that a strong leadership style affects employee performance. Moch Saffrudinand MursalimNohong, 2023
Employee effort completed in the course of performing their jobs results in performance. For the smooth operation of the business, every firm needs its staff to give their best effort. To ensure that the company's objectives are effectively met, each one of its employees must have their work evaluated. This is intended to help with employee error correction in the course of doing their jobs (Iskamto, 2019). In order to fully meet the company's vision and goal, employee performance will be attained if employees are able to operate in line with the system supplied by the firm. Dedi Iskamto,( 2020)
It is certain that the practice of leadership is widespread and frequently involves accountability, authority, and power transfer. He believes that a leader's primary duty is to lead, direct, and influence their followers to achieve both personal and corporate goals and objectives. Talat et al (2015)
The authors investigated the Effect of Leadership Style on Employee's Performance - It is impossible to overstate the effect that leadership styles have on an organization's overall effectiveness. The study looked specifically at Life Breweries Plc in Onitsha to see how leadership styles affected worker performance. The chi-square statistical technique was utilized to evaluate the hypotheses and determine the correlation between employees' performance and leadership styles. Among other things, the study found a strong and positive correlation between workers' performance and the organization's leadership style. Anyaegbunam, C. E, & Anekwe, E. A. , 2021
The purpose of this study is to ascertain and examine how motivation and leadership affect workers' performance at PT Harian Waspada Medan. This research used an associative methodology to examine the impact of motivation and leadership on the work performance of permanent staff members at PT Harian Waspada Medan. By passing the traditional assumption test first, assessing the hypothesis partially with the t test and simultaneously with the test f, multiple regression analysis is carried out. Next, find the coefficient of determination to determine the extent to which the dependent variable is impacted by the independent variable's percentage variance. LinzzyP, uyri1, H,Khair P (2019)
This study is to investigate and evaluate the effects of work environment, employee job satisfaction, and leadership styles on performance.
This study's findings indicate that performance is influenced by a leader's style, work environment, and job happiness, and that these factors all have a significant impact on performance. Priyono,T (2015)
Research methodology-Exploratory self-developed questionnaire. Secondary data through internet, research papers, reports, and articles. With a sample size of 81 respondents. A reliability test was run and Cronbach alpha values for all four items put together was 0.78.(Heir et.al)
Objectives of Study
Findings and Analysis
1.The data shows relatively balanced in gender distribution among the respondent which is male ( 50.6 % ) and female ( 49.4 % )
2.The survey of 81 respondents shows that company encourages their employees to do best of their ability.
3.When asked upon training opportunities, the majority of respondents, or 24.7%, concur that the organization provides opportunities for training and development that are adequate. Approximately 29.6% of, respondents are indifferent, meaning they don't agree or disagree. Furthermore, 18.5% disagree somewhat. Just 9.9% of respondents strongly disagree, while 17.3% strongly agree.
11.The largest percentage of respondents (32.1%) the majority of cases, their supervisor offers little to no guidance. Then, nearly the same percentage (26.2%) stated that they, receive a moderate amount of direction from their boss. The remaining participants were divided into two groups: 18.5% reported that their supervisor provides significant guidance, while 22.2% indicated that their supervisor provides very little assistance. (Table 1-Descriptive statistics)
Descriptive Statistics
|
|
N |
Minimum |
Maximum |
Mean |
Std. Deviation |
|
PERC |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.76 |
1.255 |
|
ALA |
80 |
1 |
5 |
2.75 |
1.471 |
|
ALB |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.83 |
1.339 |
|
ALC |
80 |
1 |
5 |
2.89 |
1.526 |
|
DLA |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.78 |
1.253 |
|
DLB |
80 |
1 |
5 |
2.81 |
1.493 |
|
LFA |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.44 |
0.992 |
|
LFB |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.40 |
0.989 |
|
LFC |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.46 |
0.967 |
|
RETA |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.18 |
1.178 |
|
RETB |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.55 |
1.066 |
|
RETC |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.61 |
1.025 |
|
PERA |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.21 |
0.937 |
|
PERB |
80 |
1 |
5 |
3.44 |
1.077 |
|
Valid N (listwise) |
80 |
|
|
|
|
The maximum and minimum mean values from different dimensions of leadership, motivation and performance derived from the questionnaire was found to be 3.83 to 2.75 .
In order to determine of the chosen constructs were related to each other correlation was established to find relationship between them.
(Table-2 Correlations)
|
|
PERTOTAL |
alatotal |
LFtotal |
RETTotal |
DLTOTAL |
|
|
PERTOTAL |
Pearson Correlation |
1 |
.521** |
.592** |
.649** |
.562** |
|
Sig. (2- tailed) |
|
0.000 |
0.000 |
0.000 |
0.000 |
|
|
N |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
|
alatotal |
Pearson Correlation |
.521** |
1 |
.758** |
.708** |
.802** |
|
Sig. (2- tailed) |
0.000 |
|
0.000 |
0.000 |
0.000 |
|
|
N |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
|
LFtotal |
Pearson Correlation |
.592** |
.758** |
1 |
.810** |
.772** |
|
Sig. (2- tailed) |
0.000 |
0.000 |
|
0.000 |
0.000 |
|
|
N |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
|
RETTotal |
Pearson Correlation |
.649** |
.708** |
.810** |
1 |
.786** |
|
Sig. (2- tailed) |
0.000 |
0.000 |
0.000 |
|
0.000 |
|
|
N |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
|
DLTOTAL |
Pearson Correlation |
.562** |
.802** |
.772** |
.786** |
1 |
|
Sig. (2- tailed) |
0.000 |
0.000 |
0.000 |
0.000 |
|
|
|
N |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
PER stands for Performance , LF stands for Laissez Faire leadership ,AL stands for autocratic leadership style ,DL Democratic leadership style ,RET stands for Retention
There is a positive association between Autocratic Leadership (alatotal) (0.521), Laissez-faire Leadership (LFtotal) (0.592), and Retention (RETTotal) (0.649) and Overall Performance (PERTOTA). This shows that workplaces that score better on retention, autocratic, and laissez-faire leadership also typically score higher on overall performance.
Further to determine the strength of construct which explains variance caused in dependent variable regression was run.(Table 3-Coefficients)
|
Model |
Unstandardized Coefficients Std. B Error |
Standardized Coefficients Beta |
t |
Sig. |
||
|
1 |
(Constant) |
0.952 |
0.187 |
|
5.083 |
0.015 |
|
DLTOTAL |
0.874 |
0.094 |
0.679 |
6.255 |
0.001 |
|
|
LFtotal |
0.818 |
0.081 |
1.007 |
10.151 |
0.003 |
|
|
alatotal |
0.459 |
0.064 |
0.409 |
7.141 |
0.002 |
|
|
PERTOTAL |
0.418 |
0.085 |
0.427 |
4.941 |
0.014 |
|
From the regression table it was found that except performance all other chosen constructs explained reasonably the variance caused in the model. In terms of leadership styles Democratic leadership explained majority followed by autocratic and then laissez faire basedon the selected sample size. Performance was found not so much explaining the variance with the reason it is dependent on various other factors and not solely leadership.
Conclusion
We found that leadership styles significantly affect employee motivation and output. We have determined the distinct effects of several leadership ideologies on employee outcomes by analysing transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, authoritarian, democratic, and servant leadership styles. In particular, the characteristics of transformational leadership—vision, inspiration, and empowerment—are useful in increasing employee engagement and production. Inspiring and motivating teams, promoting creativity, and giving workers a sense of purpose and belonging are typical leadership traits.
In addition, our research highlights the significance of aligning leadership styles with organisational values and goals to boost employee enthusiasm and productivity. Better levels of employee satisfaction and retention are more likely to occur when leaders prioritise building a trusting and collaborative culture, providing opportunities for support and advancement.
Implications
Factors such as industry standards, organisational architecture, and geographical location can help leaders maximise their effectiveness and achieve their desired outcomes. We also found that performance mediates the relationship between leadership style and retention, which is an important finding. Utilising sophisticated statistical methods, we have determined the pathways through which leadership behaviours influence employee performance and, consequently, retention probability.
Leadership that communicates expectations clearly, supports employees' growth as professionals, and gives credit when credit is due is a surefire recipe for a high-performance culture. As a result, staff morale and loyalty are boosted. The effects of different leadership philosophies on employee motivation, productivity, and retention over the long run need further study.
Scope for further research
Leadership is multifaceted, and this study adds to our understanding of how it impacts organisational performance. Managers and organisational leaders can use the study's findings to better engage their employees, boost their performance, and keep them around through more effective leadership practices. Further studies can be considered at different level of employees and with larger sample.
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