Impact assessment of managerial leadership styles on employee productivity

Abstract

The leadership style of a manager in an organization can have far-reaching consequences not only on employee motivation and performance, but also on organizational success. There is no one right style; different leaders employ different leadership strategies under varying circumstances and follower behaviours. To influence and control employee behaviour, leaders use various strategies to reinforce their followers’ desired attitudes and behaviours. The relationship between leadership styles and their impact on employee performance is becoming increasingly important in organizations.

The primary objective of this study was to investigate whether a relationship exists between managers’ leadership styles and the reinforcement techniques employed by them to reinforce employee behaviour. We also wanted to understand whether there are certain reinforcement techniques which are more effective at enhancing employee performance and productivity and make a quantitative evaluation of these reinforcement strategies on employee performance.

To measure the leadership styles, we used Goleman’s Six Leadership Styles – coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching – as we identified the framework to be most relevant to our use case. For assessing the perceived performance of employees, we employed the Individual Work Performance Questionnaire to measure task performance, contextual performance, and counterproductive behaviour.