A STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEADERSHIP STYLES AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AMONG EMPLOYEES IN THE EASTERN PROVINCIAL COUNCIL

Abstract

The focus of the study was to investigate the relationship between leadership styles of Heads of Departments and employee commitment in the Eastern Provincial Council, especially the in the departments located in Trincomalee District. This study was designed to identify the leadership styles of Heads of Departments practiced by them in their institutions and to find out the relationship between leadership styles and level of commitment of the employees. Even though in the past there are ample of studies conducted in this topic, no literature evidence found that the Eastern Provincial Council had been taken as sample for the study. Hence, the gap in the literature persuade to conduct this study. In fact, the past studies proved that there is a strong positive correlation between the leadership styles and employees' commitment in various organizations both private and public sectors. However, no study conducted to in the Eastern Provincial Council to explain the relationship between the leadership styles practiced and level of employees' commitment at those institutions in the Eastern Provincial Council. The study uses a mixed method approach and the data were collected by using the Survey method by adopting the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) from the selected sample comprised of 352 leaders and subordinates of 25 institutions (ministries and departments) in the Eastern Provincial Council. Leadership styles were identified using the leader and rater versions of the MLQ and employee commitment was measured by using OCQ. The collected data were fed into the SPSS and excel sheet and analyzed with the help of regression results and the set-out hypothesis. The major finding of the study revealed that transactional and transformational leadership styles are the most practiced leadership styles in the Eastern Provincial Council and those styles have a positive and strong positive correlation with employee commitment. Laissez-Faire leadership style also has a positive effect on employee commitment but it is recorded non-significant result with the employee commitment.