Relational Analysis of Leadership and Organizational Commitment - Assignment Example

Relational Analysis of Leadership and Organizational Commitment of Affiliation Several articles have discussed differentleadership styles in relation to their impact on organizational commitment. It is worth noting that a study of most of these literature almost reveal some form of consistency in the manner and frequency that some words are used. This prompts the need for a reader to carry out content analysis in order to establish what exactly the authors are trying to pass across. The high frequency with which the phrase “transformational leadership style” has been used alongside other phrases such as “job satisfaction”, “employee commitment”, and “occupational self-efficacy” in most of the leadership and management literature studied point to the fact that it is the most preferable leadership style for bolstering “organizational commitment”.. Key words: transformational leadership, transactional, occupational self‐efficacy, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, affective commitment. In this particular content analysis, focus is in examining scholarly articles that research on leadership style within organizations and which guarantee the utmost level of organizational commitment. The primary guiding question for the exercise is, of the transactional and transformational leadership styles, which one has the greatest positive impact on organizational commitment? A number of scholars have delved into this question of leadership as it is apparent that the nature of leadership style that organizations subscribes to bear a direct implication to employee motivation and subsequently their commitment at the workplace. However, for this particular exercise, the following three scholarly articles are regarded: Raja and Palanichamy’s Leadership Styles and Its Impact on Organizational Commitment, Garg and Ramjee’s The Relationship between Leadership Styles and Employee Commitment at a Parastatal Company in South Africa, and Clinebell’s Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Organizational Commitment. The key words that are coded include transformational leadership, transactional leadership, occupational self‐efficacy, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and affective commitment. Transformational leadership and transactional leadership are the two most commonly used styles in leadership, and which this content analysis seek to explore and determine their frequency of usage as well as the frequency that each is linked with positive organizational commitment. In addition to these leadership style, another important phrase considered in this analysis is organizational commitment. Other words that are taken to have similar or rather closer meaning to this word include occupational self‐efficacy, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and affective commitment. Therefore, while exploring the aforementioned texts, the frequency of appearance of these words was noted in each of the articles and later on a relational analysis conducted. Raja and Palanichamy’s article has the phrase “transformational leadership” repeated within the text for at least twenty three times while “transactional leadership” features approximately eighteen times. On the other hand, “organizational commitment” has been repeated for not less than forty three instances. Affective commitment appears once. The main phrases in Garg and Ramjee’s article include transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and employee commitment. The frequency of appearance of transformational leadership is about sixty times while that of transactional leadership stands at approximately forty five times. Employee commitment features sixteen times in the entire texts. As regards to Clinebell’s article, the main phrases considered are Organizational Commitment, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership. The phrase transformational leadership appears about forty five times while transactional leadership features in approximately thirty five instances. Organizational commitment features at roughly fifty five instances in the entire text. Another phrase, affective commitment, which also bears a close correlation to organizational commitment has appeared in about five to eight instances in the entire document. A radical analysis of the above statistics point at a rather conclusive findings regarding the correlation that exists between the various types of leadership styles and organizational commitment. Although there are other leadership styles that also contribute to organizational commitment, transformational and transactional leadership style take an upper hand when it comes to this topic of discussion. From the conceptual analysis, it is evidently noted that in all the three text transformational leadership style featured the most number of times as compared to transactional leadership style. Also, bearing in mind that the topics of these article inclined towards pointing to the leadership style that attracted the greatest employee commitment, the strong emphasis on transformational leadership style point to the fact that all authors agree on it as the best style to pursue. Organizational leadership as well as organizational commitment are two concepts that have been greatly researched in management practices. Fundamental concepts of management only insisted on functions of a manager that were mainly limited to planning, organizing, staffing, directing, controlling, and coordinating activities of others. Little, if any, attention was given to the concept of organizational leadership. However, as technology advanced and exchange of information among corporate organizations reached a level high in the 20th century, presence of factors of production and technical skill could not singularly determine the performance capability of organizations (Shams-Ur-Rehman, 2012). Consequently, organizations shifted their focus to human resource in a bid to ensure that they perform at their optimal level. It is out of this realization that leadership style became so crucial part and parcel of management practices. In addition to having the technical prowess, organization sought to recruit managers who will not only enhance the output of an organization but also boost the level of employee commitment. Employee commitment, also referred to as organizational or afferent commitment, describes that quality in an employee that keeps their loyalty as well as job performance to a given organization at its their peak. Such employees are ever motivated to work harder and stick to their current employer no matter the better offers that other organizations might have laid on the table. Undoubtedly, committed employee always take full responsibility of the task at hand and would go to any level to ensure that the output is their best possible. Also, it is worth noting that organizations with high levels of organizational commitment tend to experience the least levels of employee turnover. Transformational leadership is evidently emphasized in all of the three articles analyzed thanks to its ability to boost follower’s commitments by positively affecting their needs, values, and self-esteem. Bass and Avolio (1995) categorized the impact of this leadership style based on four dimension: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Greater levels of afferent commitment, extra efforts, and higher job satisfaction, can be realized by subordinates when managers exercise transformational leadership concepts. A number of researches have already established a direct correlation between transformational leadership and self-efficacy. According to Schyns (2001), self-efficacy is stated as a precondition for employees to embrace transformational style of leadership. On other hand, other researchers such as Shamir et al. (1993) insists that it is transformational leadership that influences the self-efficacy of the subordinates. However, regardless of which dimension of the two to consider, one thing that stands out clearly is that there exists a strong positive relationship between transformational leadership and occupational efficacy. It is this self-efficacy that translates into job satisfaction and eventual organizational commitment (Jayawardena and Gregar, 2009). A relational analysis of the content of these articles also point to a consistent findings that link phrases such as transformational leadership, motivation, employee self-efficacy, employee job satisfaction, employee afferent commitment to organizational commitment. All these are among the phrases that were coded in the contextual analysis. While one can surmise with accuracy that all researches agree on transformational leadership as the most preferable leadership style to bolster organizational commitment, it requires a little bit of connecting the dots to understand how all these functions. All the above authors have keenly revolved around the aforementioned phrases which can be connected together to enhance further the credibility of the findings. Motivation is an indispensable component of efficiency at the work place. Employees in an autocratic form of leadership tend to work out of compulsion rather than self-initiative. On the other hand, collegial work environment, which transformational leadership style advocates for tends to empower employees who take responsibility of the tasks at hand. They therefore work out of self-initiative rather than compulsion. It is the motivation that they gain from this that drives their self-efficacy to a higher degree which translates to greater job satisfaction. Whereas amount employee compensation remains as a critical determinant of motivation at work place, an employee who enjoys their work, hence satisfied, often a times prioritize on the job satisfaction they derive from their current places of work instead of higher compensation packages that they may be offered somewhere else. Consequently, after linking all these factors together, that is the only time when one may conclude with certainty that a given organization has a higher organizational commitment than the other. In conclusion, the high frequency with which the phrase “transformational leadership style” is used alongside other phrases such as “job satisfaction”, “employee commitment”, and “occupational self-efficacy” in most of the leadership and management literature studied point to the fact that it is the most preferable leadership style for bolstering “organizational commitment”. References Raja, S.A. and Palanichamy, P. (2007). LEADERSHIP STYLES AND ITS IMPACT ON ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT. The Journal of Commerce, Vol. 3, No. 4, ISSN: 2218-8118, 2220-6043 Garg, A.K. and Ramjee, D. (2013). The Relationship between Leadership Styles and Employee Commitment at a Parastatal Company in South Africa. International Business & Economics Research Journal – November 2013 Volume 12, Number 11. Clinebell, S., et al. (2013). Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Organizational Commitment. Journal of Service Science – 2013 Volume 6, Number 1. Jayawardena, C. and Gregar, A. (2009). Transformational Leadership, Occupational Self Efficacy, and Career Success of Managers Shams-Ur-Rehman, Shareef, A., Mahmood, A., & Ishaque, A. (2012). PERCEIVED LEADERSHIP STYLES AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 4(1), 616-626. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1029925584?accountid=8289 Read More