Leadership Style and Employee Work Performance Warwick Student ID: 0916301 Leaders cannot be properly defined without

also identifying their counterparts, a group of willing followers (Hollander, 1987). Leadership is often viewed as an action i.e. something done to others while followership is viewed as a group falling to the leaders wishes, the reaction (Goffee and Jones, 2006; Collinson, 2006). This essay aims to explore the relationship between leadership styles and work performance. There will be three main leadership styles explored in this essay. The three leadership styles that will be discussed are transformational leadership, transactional leadership and Laissez-faire style of leadership. Then we will discuss if leadership style affects work performance. This will be done by using research results done on construction companies in Thailand. Also theories that argue leadership has little or nothing to do with work performance and that it is just an overrated idea will be explored. By the end of this essay, the author hopes to successfully identify the extent of which leadership style affects employee work performance. Transformational leadership is a style of leadership where the leader is charismatic, develops a vision for the group hence instilling pride, respect, loyalty and trust in his employees (Bakanauskiene, Bartnikaite, 2009). According to Bass, B.M. and Avolio, B.J. (2004), the leader provides inspiration and motivates those under him by creating high expectations and modelling appropriate behaviours. They become role models who are trusted by subordinates. A leader adopting this style of leadership gives consideration his workers, paying special attention to the followers and giving them respect and personality. They build a considerate leadership with their subordinates and acts as their coach or mentor, creating a supportive atmosphere for the growth of the employee. This, at the same time provides intellectual stimulation, challenging followers with new ideas and approaches and encourages the subordinates to go beyond what they expected before (Burns, 1978). Transactional leadership focuses mainly on the physical and security needs of its subordinates (Limsila, Ogunlana, 2008). The relationship that fosters between employer and employee is based on bargaining exchange or reward systems, where the leader and his employees agree to achieve a specific economical target and the leader will provide the rewards for meeting performance targets (Limsila, Ogunlana, 2008; Bass, 1985; Bass and Avolio, 1993). The leader also manages by exception where the leader draws out the rules and regulations as well as what is expected of the employee and may punish his subordinates when they step out of line. This implies that the leader is very hands on on work performance and corrective action is taken as quickly as needed. On this style of leadership, the leader urges his subordinates to perform tasks strictly according to the guidelines set out and nothing extra (Bass and Avolio, 2004). Laissez-faire leadership, a French term which literally means let do or in broader terms implies let it be or leave it alone is a form of leadership where the leader is avoidant in decision making and does not involve himself with the work affairs of his employees (Bass

and Avolio, 2004). He is often out of reach when necessary and only takes care of everyday activities in the organization without any future planning (Limsila, Ogunlana, 2008). This style of leadership is often associated with negative feedback such as unproductiveness and ineffectiveness (Deluga, 1992). Two instruments are used to measure work performance and leadership style. The correlation between the two is then used to determine the effectiveness of a certain leadership style. Atkinson (1999) introduced the iron triangle of three criterias which are interlinked with the success of a project or work performance. The three criterias are cost, time and quality. In other words, the completion of the project on time, completion within budget and completion at desired level of quality are usually accounted for when determining work performance (Tukel and Rom, 2001; Xiao and Proverbs, 2003). Although there may be other methods in determining work performance, this is the most widespread method. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) developed by B.M. Bass and B.J. Avolio (2004) is used in this case study. The MLQ determines leadership styles adopted by leaders from a list of factors which are each unique to each leadership style. Participants are given questions related to leadership behaviour and then asked to rate it with respect to their leaders on a 5 point scale ranging from 0 to 4, with 0 being not at all and 4 being frequently, if not always. From these results, it was possible to determine which leadership style was being employed by the leaders. In the case study on construction companies based in Thailand done by Limsila and Ogulana (2008), a total number of 156 respondents including project managers, engineers and architects working in construction projects in Thailand participated in the study. Results from the study show that each project manager uses a variety of leadership styles as the situation demands, ranging from transformational, transactional and laissez-faire. Nevertheless, subordinates performance and commitment is still impacted by the dominant leadership behaviour or style normally adapted by each leader. As such, it is still possible to evaluate the most effective style of leadership. The most adopted leadership approach in Thailand is transformational leadership while laissez-faire is the least used. From the research results, it is known that transformational leadership has a significant positive relationship with effectiveness, satisfaction and extra effort and commitment while transactional leadership and laissez-faire does not. Therefore, it is no surprise that leadership behaviours related to the transformational style would have a positive correlation with work performance. From the case study, it is found that work quantity and quality has a positive significant relationship with inspirational motivation, individualised consideration and idealised influence, all of which are factors of transformational leadership. It further reveals that overall satisfaction in subordinate work performance has the highest correlation with creativity in problem solving of subordinates, followed by quantity of work, quality of work, teamwork and work discipline. Overall, the results show that transformational leadership styles has a positive significant relationship

with work performance while transactional has a positive correlation with work performance and laissez-faire being the only one having negative correlation with regards to work performance. However, transformational style of leadership was not always popular in Thailand as recent study shows that autocratic or task-structure are the preferred styles in Thailand (Limsila and Ogunlana 2008). Kumbanaruk (1987) also observed that Thai employees are more used to a tradition of top-down approach with employees submitting to orders rather than thinking for themselves or expressing their own views. One possible explanation for this shift in preference of style in leadership may be due to modernisation and a change from traditional monarch systems to a more democratic government has led to the Thai people wanting to be more involved in decision making (Limsila and Ogunlana, 2008). Distance between a leader and his subordinate is also reduced. This would explain why the preferred leadership style in Thailand now is the style that stimulates creativity among subordinates and encourages them to be more innovative. From this case study, it can be concluded that transformational leadership is becoming the more widely accepted style compared to task-orientated or transactional style of leadership. As it was seen from the case, as people get more educated in the future, they are willing to take more risks and accept more responsibilities (Limsilia and Ogunlana, 2008). This form of participative leadership allows employees to take part in the decision making of the company and hence give the employees a certain sense of belonging in the workplace. In relation to work performance, this style of leadership is most often positively associated with work quality, work quantity and creativity in problem solving of subordinates. Moreover, it has significant relationships with leadership outcomes namely effectiveness at work, satisfaction, extra effort and organizational commitment (Limsila and Ogunlana, 2008). Hence, fulfilling Atkinsons (1998) iron triangle model of measuring work performance. Even so, there are some who argue that leadership styles do not play a big role in affecting organizational outcomes and are overrated and romanticized as a result of biased attributions about leaders (Meindl and Ehrlich, 1987). In the same journal, The Romance of Leadership and the Evaluation of Organizational Performance (1987), the authors state that organizational performance is largely due to external environmental factors that goes beyond the control of the organization. This questions the actual role of leaders in the functioning of firms and even more so, diminishes the idea that leaders play a key role in shaping organizational outcomes. Gemmill, G. and Oakley, J. (1992) further mentions that people, over time have conjured up the idea of leadership from the process of reification, which is a social process that converts an abstraction of mental construct into a supposed real entity. This comes from the uncertainty and ambiguity in our natural world causing most people to feel helplessness and powerlessness (Becker, 1973). The fear of facing these feelings has led to people turning to leader role functions as emotional container on one person who is imagined to be the leader (Gemmill, G. and Oakley, J., 1992; Becker, 1973). This emotional dependency on the role of leaders in an organization has led to the emotional and intellectual deskilling of workers. Research done by Meindhl, Ehrlich and Dukerich (1985) has found

that growth performance for companies and corresponding figures for relevant industries have had a close correlation. Suggesting that a companys performance is mainly due to external factors affecting whole industries rather than the unique and direct control of its top management. These results further confirm earlier studies (Salancik and Meindhl, 1984) that leaders mainly use causal or financial reasoning to create an illusion of control around work performance. Often these illusions of control are accompanied by a high degree of receptivity by employee, hinting that leaders are not really contributing to work performance. In conclusion, it is widely accepted that leaders play a key role in employee work performance. This is seen from research done where certain leadership styles have been proved to increase productivity and general satisfaction of employees, hence leading to increased work performance. Therefore, it cannot be ignored that the style employed by a certain leader does have a certain extent of influence over the performance of an organization. However, the research used in this essay has been done focusing only on construction companies. Results might not be the same for other industries where different leadership styles may not play a key role in the growth of the company. People have come to believe in leaders as key roles in the management of an organization. The romanticization of the role leaders have lead to another school of thought where people have become so dependant with higher management that they are caught in the Jonah Complex which is referred to an individual running away from his or her undeveloped potential for creativity and greatness (Maslow, 1971). However, this may not be entirely true for leaders adopting the transformational style leadership which attempts to reduce the gap between leaders and workers by encouraging workers to take part in decision making and discussions and in turn stimulates their subordinates growth in the organization.

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