Democratic Leadership and Employees Satisfaction in the Organization - Literature review Example

Literature Review Name: University: Date: How Democratic Leadership Effect On the Employees Satisfaction in the Organization: A Case of Hilton Hotels Introduction Existing research has proven that the leadership styles of hotel managers have enormous effect on the behavior of employees, and this includes their adoption of firm’s marketing as well as strategic initiatives. As it will be evidenced in this literature review, employee performance and commitment can be enormously influenced by hotel managers through democratic style of leadership. The managers have to espouse a style of leadership which could positively influence their employees. The purpose of this literature review is to examine the previous studies that focused on the effect of democratic leadership on employees’ satisfaction in the hospitality industry. Literature Review The study by Mohammed et al. (2014) demonstrated that all organizations are set up with the anticipation that they will perform efficiently and effectively. The authors try to demonstrate how effective leadership plays a crucial role in revenue generation, profit maximization, improvement in productivity, as well as improved employees’ performance. This article was selected because it demonstrates how leadership styles lead to realization of productivity growth and employee performance as well as organizational effectiveness and efficiency. This article is particularly relevant to the topic under discussion since it exhibits relationship between style of leadership and employees’ organizational performance. The tested hypotheses demonstrated that the leader’s unique achievement is a social and human one that originates from his knowledge of his followers as well as the relationship between organizational goals and individual goals. The authors observed that good leadership attach the employees’ self-interest to the organization’s interest. A good leader is the one that encourages workers to maximize their performance. Their study finding demonstrates that there is a strong relationship between the leadership styles as well as employees performance. The authors conclude that effective leaders should always ensure that the performance of their employees is the best in the industry. More specifically, leaders can positively influence their employee performance by maintaining a harmonious working relationship. Iqbal, Anwar, and Haider (2015) examine the leadership styles effect on the performance of employees. They sought to understand how different styles of leadership, specifically democratic, autocratic and participative affect employees’ performance. According to the authors, democratic often ask for opinions rather than making suggestions; that is to say, employees are allowed to make their decisions democratically and then the leader approves. This article was selected because it shows evidence of how democratic leadership style strongly influences the employee performance. This article is relevant to the research topic since it evidences how democratic leadership offers guidance and accepts inputs from individual employees. The authors observed that democratic leadership promotes responsibility sharing and allows for continual consultation and delegation. The leaders effectively delegate tasks to employees as well as ensure they are completely responsible to the tasks; thus, encouraging their followers to participate in employee and leadership development and also become good leaders. In so doing, employees become more committed to the organizational goals leading to improved organizational performance and employee satisfaction. Democratic leadership styles as observed by the authors improve both short-term and long-term performance and could be utilized for all work-related projects. The authors conclude that democratic leadership offers employees confidence allowing them to meet deadlines and organizational goals. The objective of Luo (2014) study was to examine the relationships between leadership as well as its impact on behaviors and attitudes of employees in the Chinese hotel industry. In China, the hotel ownership structure is complex because the industry is fast developing. According to the author, this structure leads to increased competition within human resources and the market itself. For this reason, it becomes more challenging for leaders in the hotel industry to attract and retain skilled employees needed to attain outstanding standards. This article was selected since it demonstrates how effect of leadership on employee behaviors and attitudes are mediated through affective commitment, satisfaction with justice, justice perceptions, and employee self-concept. An ideal leader for Chinese employees is the one with person-oriented and task-oriented behaviors; therefore, the author insists that a combination of transactional and transformational leadership could be suitable for Chinese leaders. This article is relevant since it demonstrates how other styles of leadership aside from democratic leadership could positively influence employee satisfaction and performance. The author concludes that hotel managers must develop their behaviors or traits in order to improve their influences on the employees. In their study, Ispas and Babaita (2013), they tried to identify the effective and optimal leadership style in the Romanian hospitality and hotel industry. According to the authors, only a few studies have focused on determining the leadership style effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This article was selected because it exhibits how styles of leadership have a positive, direct, as well as statistically momentous impact on the employee satisfaction and commitment. This article is relevant because it will help demonstrate how employee job satisfaction is increased when the leader involves them in the decision making processes. The authors observed that employees are likely to be satisfied if their leaders allow them to express their disapproval, opinions and suggestions to the decisions made. A leader as observed by the authors should have a well-defined work target and make sure that well-performing employees are adequately rewarded. More importantly, when employees associated positive with their leaders, they would be filled with pride and achieving organizational goals will become easier. The authors observed a powerful relationship between leadership styles (transactional, transformational, and participative) and the employee job satisfaction. The authors conclude that allowing employees to participate in decision making would not only improve their job satisfaction but also their organizational commitment. Tsai, Cheng, and Chang (2010) tried to combine leadership, internal marketing, empowerment, as well as job stress with the objective of proposing an integrated framework of employees’ satisfaction and performance and organizational commitment in the hospitality industry. This article was selected because it exhibits how organizational commitment and job satisfaction are positively influenced by leadership. As mentioned by the authors, leadership and empowerment are the main factors that increase employees’ organizational commitment in the hospitality industry. They also observed that internal marketing is a crucial factor in that improves job satisfaction amongst employees. The relevancy of this article to the research topic is attributed to the fact that it demonstrates how industry leaders can adequately empower their employees to improve job performance and satisfaction. Their study findings demonstrate that the positive perception of employees in the hospitality industry with the view to leadership and empowerment improve their organizational commitment. More importantly, leaders have to adequately empower their employees to enable them express their competency properly as well as become more flexible and more autonomic when handling emergencies and also at the workplace. This would consequently improve employees’ loyalty and cohesion. In conclusion, this article indicate that leaders can improve job performance by providing suitable job loading as well as objectives based on the employees’ positions, seniority or professions. Blayney and Blotnicky (2010) examined the relationships between education, age, tenure, gender, and demographic factors and leadership competencies in the Canadian hotel hotels. Given that the hotel industry depends heavily on its employees for its success, the style of leadership considered to be more effective is the one that promotes employees’ empowerment, whereby employees are allowed to control their situations. Consequently, this generates a working environment whereby employees are able to act efficiently and quickly when issues arise. This article was selected because it offers a glimpse into the fascinating and complex relationship between organizational performance and leadership. The article exhibits the different styles of leadership that could allow the organization overcome different challenges it faces and improve job performance and satisfaction. The authors observed that strategic and visionary leadership allows employees to focus on strategies and goals. Organization success, according to the authors, depends on the leaders’ ability to communicate their organizational vision and their ability to encourage employees to embrace the shared vision. Goal attainment in transactional leadership is achieved by sharing something valuable between the leaders and the employees while transformational leaders achieve goals by motivating followers to pursue the same vision. The authors conclude that the emotional connection between leaders can be strengthened when leaders focus on employee motivation rather than organizational outcomes. Akanpaadgi, Valogo, and Akaligang (2014) article examined how leadership style influences the employees’ motivation as well as organizational goals realization in the hospitality industry. In particular, the authors examined the different leadership styles in the hotels, the associated problems, and feasible solutions to such problems. They utilized a combination of survey and case study methods to collect data. This article was selected because it exhibits why democratic style of leadership is has become dominant in the hospitality industry. The article is considered relevant because its findings refute previous studies which emphasized that autocratic style was the prevailing style of leadership in the hospitality industry. The authors’ findings are inconsistent with previous studies mainly because the surveyed hotels in the previous studies were mainly five-star hotels while this study focused more on one-star and budget hotels. The authors observed that the majority of one-star and budget hotels have flexible working conditions, less number of employees, and often use flat organizational structures. They noted that whereas the five-star hotels have fixated operating techniques and rigid structures, the one-star and budget hotels are not just participatory but also more democratic in their leadership style. In conclusion, the article demonstrates that democratic style of leadership is more suitable for organizations in hospitality industry since if facilitate the realization of organizational goals, reduces labor turnover and absenteeism, and increases employee and customer satisfaction. The objective of Al-Ababneh (2013) study was to examine the leadership style effect on job satisfaction amongst employees, especially in the five-star hotels. Information gathered through questionnaires demonstrated a direct positive relationship between laissez-faire and democratic leadership styles and employees’ job satisfaction. This article was selected because it demonstrates how democratic leadership style influence employees’ job satisfaction in the hotel industry. The article is relevant because it findings demonstrate the dominant nature of democratic in promoting job satisfaction amongst the hotel employees. The results from the study exhibit that different styles of leadership have different influence on the job satisfaction. The author established that democratic leadership enormously influences the job satisfaction. For this reason, adoption of suitable leadership styles allows leaders to positively influence the level of job satisfaction in the hotels. The author observed that job satisfaction amongst the hotel employees was different because of employees’ attitudes towards job facets and different demographic profiles. According to the study results, job satisfaction exhibited by employees toward their job facets and jobs was moderate, because of different job satisfaction levels. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that there exists a positive relationship between job satisfaction as well as democratic and laissez-faire leadership. Karunathilake (2016) study highlighted the significance of leaders’ behavior and characteristics as key factors that can influence the performance of employees in Sri Lankan hotel industry. The author emphasizes that poor leadership lead to high labor turnover and increased absenteeism since most employees are dissatisfied. This article was selected purposely because it examines the leaders’ behavior and characteristics that promote employee satisfaction and performance. This article is relevant because its survey results can be utilized to demonstrate how leaders’ behavior and characteristics directly influence employee satisfaction and organizational performance. The authors observed that leaders’ characteristics are positively associated with hotel’s employee performance. More importantly, the performance of hotel employees can only be improved if they feel motivated and valued by their leaders. For this reason, the author suggests that the leaders in the hotel industry can improve the employees’ performance by improving the employee job performance. This can be achieved by understanding their problems associated with productivity development, engaging employees in decision making processes, capitalizing on the cost effective solutions so as to put their development programs into practice. In so doing, the leader would be able to develop the employees’ capacity to handle quality work. To sum up, this article has demonstrated that democratic style of leadership makes positive contributions to employee behavior leading to improved employee performance in the hotel industry. In this article, Clark, Hartline, and Jones (2009) examined the effect of leadership behavior and character on employee performance. They emphasized that employees are inclined to be more satisfied when managers demonstrate personal commitment. The authors insist that higher commitment level by leaders could result in improved service quality. This article was selected because it examines the challenges that the hotel industry is facing with regard to leadership and service quality. The relevant because it exhibits how hotel managers that are committed to service quality and empower their employees could generate a transformational environment that allows employees also to be committed to quality service. The authors observed that frontline hotel employees that are committed to and satisfied with their jobs show low role stress levels, share the hotel’s customer-oriented values, and provide high quality service. The authors further observed that the hotel manager's style of leadership has enormous effect on the employees' behavior, which includes their willingness to adopt the firm's marketing as well as strategic initiatives, especially those associated with customer service. According to the authors, the hotel managers could influence the commitment of employees towards service quality through transformational leadership style. To sum up, the article demonstrates that the commitment of employees towards service quality depends on the leaders’ ability to improve job satisfaction. Conclusion In conclusion, the literature review has demonstrated that managers can improve their employees’ job satisfaction level by espousing suitable style of leadership, particularly democratic leadership. Most of the reviewed studies have demonstrated that democratic leadership was the most prevailing style of leadership in the hospitality industry. As evidenced in this literature review, democratic leadership is related to improved employee productivity, commitment, and satisfaction. More importantly, it has been demonstrated that leadership is very crucial for effectiveness and survival of hotel. References Akanpaadgi, E., Valogo, M., & Akaligang, C. (2014). An Assessment of the Effects of Leadership on the Motivation of Employees towards the Achievement of Organizational Goals: A Case Study of the Hospitality Industry in the Bolgatanga Municipality. European Journal of Business and Management, 6(24), 32-39. Al-Ababneh, M. (2013). Leadership Style of Managers in Five-Star Hotels and its Relationship with Employee’s Job Satisfaction. International Journal of Management & Business Studies, 3(2), 93-98. Blayney, C., & Blotnicky, K. (2010). Leadership In The Hotel Industry: Evidence From Canada. International Journal Of Management And Marketing Research, 3(3), 53-66. Clark, R. A., Hartline, M. D., & Jones, K. C. (2009, May 1). The Effects of Leadership Style on Hotel Employees’ Commitment to Service Quality. Retrieved from Highbeam: https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-199194236.html Iqbal, N., Anwar, S., & Haider, N. (2015). Effect of Leadership Style on Employee Performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), 146-151. Ispas, A., & Babaita, C. (2013). The Effects Of Leadership Style On The Employees’ Job Satisfaction And Organizational Commitment From The Hotel Industry. Proceedings Of The International Management Conference, 6(1), 254-262 . Karunathilake, L. (2016). The Impact of Leaders’ Characteristics and their Behavior to the Employee Performance in the Hotel Industry in Sri Lanka. Wayamba Journal of Management, 4(2), 9-19. Luo, Z. (2014). The Process of Leadership: From Leadership Styles to Subordinates’ Attitudes and Behaviors in the Hospitality Industry. Thesis, University of Stavanger, Stavanger. Mohammed, U. D., Yusuf, M. O., Sanni, I. M., Ifeyinwa, T. N., Bature, N. U., & Kazeem, A. O. (2014). The Relationship between Leadership Styles and Employees’ Performance in Organizations (A Study of Selected Business Organizations in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja Nigeria). European Journal of Business and Management, 6(22), 1-11. Tsai, M.-C., Cheng, C.-C., & Chang, Y.-Y. (2010). Drivers of hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance. African Journal of Business Management, 4(18), 4118-4134. Read More