Relationship Between Leadership Styles and Employee Productivity in the Manufacturing Sector in Malawi: A Case of Candlex Limited
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group towards attaining a specific set of goals. This influence can either be negative or positive depending on the leadership style adopted. This study established the relationship between leadership styles and employee productivity in the manufacturing sector in Malawi, Southern Africa. It used a mixed method approach that included data collected from questionnaires and interviews along with statistical testing using the Spearman’s rank correlation in SPSS. Results showed that in the Malawian manufacturing sector, based on employee perceptions, the most prevalent leadership style was the autocratic leadership style and the least prevalent was the Laissez-Faire leadership style. The democratic leadership was considered the most effective style for enhancing productivity, however, only the persuasive leadership style had a positive significant correlation with employee productivity (rs = 0.554, p < 0.01). It is recommended that organisations should formulate leadership policies that mix leadership styles such as democratic and persuasive leadership to enhance employee productivity.
Downloads
References
Adiguzel, Z. & Cakir, M. (2021). Examining the effects of moral leadership on employees in the manufacturing sector. Elektronik Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 20(77), 168-187.
Allison, P. D. (1999). Multiple regression: A primer. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Amiscua, M., Fernandez, M., Madanging, J. & Querido, J. (2018). The Impact of Leadership Styles on Employees' Productivity: A Qualitative Study of Employees' Experiences of Motivation in the Workplace. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/requests/attachment/52212945 (Accessed 29/12/18).
Ansari, M.A. (1990). Leader behavior and organizational effectiveness: The moderating effect of organizational climate. Organizational research in Indian perspective, 9-35.
Auren, U. (2018). Techniques of Leadership. New York: McGraw Hill.
Babbie, E. & Rubin, A. (1989). Research Methods for Social Work. California: Wadsworth.
Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. Free Press.
Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications. The Free Press google schola, 2, 173-184.
Bass, B.M. and Avolio, B.J. (1990). Transformational leadership development: Manual for the multifactor leadership questionnaire. Consulting Psychologists Press.
Bass, B.M., Avolio, B.J., Jung, D.I. & Berson, Y. (2003). Predicting unit performance by assessing transformational and transactional leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 88(2), 207.
Beyene, K.T., Shi, C.S. & Wu, W.W. (2016). Linking culture, organizational learning orientation and product innovation performance: The case of Ethiopian manufacturing firms. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 27(1), 88-101.
Bhargavi, S. & Yaseen, A. (2016). Leadership styles and organizational performance. Strategic Management Quarterly, 4(1), 87-117.
Burrell, G. & Morgan, G. (2019). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis: Elements of the sociology of corporate life. Routledge.
Chemers, M.M. (1997). An Integrative Theory of Leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Cole, G.A. (2005). Organizational Behavior. Nottingham: TJ International.
Creswell, J. W. & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications.
Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16(3), 297– 334.
Desgourdes, C., Hasnaoui, J., Umar, M. & Feliu, J.G. (2024). Decoding laissez-faire leadership: an indepth study on its influence over employee autonomy and well-being at work. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 20(2), 1047-1065.
Duckett, H. & Macfarlane, E. (2003). Emotional intelligence and transformational leadership in retailing. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 24(6), 309-317.
Edward, F.T. (2007). The discourse of leadership and the practice of administration. Journal of Applied Christian Leadership, 2(1), 32-53.
Fiedler, F.E. (1972). How do you make leaders more effective? New answers to an old puzzle. Organizational Dynamics, 1(2), 3-18.
Fleishman, E.A. (1957). A leader behavior description for industry. Leader behavior: Its description and measurement, 103, 10-119.
Gastil, J. (1994). A meta-analytic review of the productivity and satisfaction of democratic and autocratic leadership. Small Group Research, 25(3), 384-410.
Gordon, G. E., & Rosen, N. (1981). Critical factors in leadership succession. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 27(2), 227-254.
Government of Malawi (2020). Malawi Vision 2063: An inclusively wealthy and self-reliant nation. National Planning Commission, Lilongwe, Malawi.
Griffin, M. A., & Mathieu, J. E. (1997). Modeling organizational processes across hierarchical levels: climate, leadership, and group process in work groups. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 18(6), 731-744.
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2014). A primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Harms, P.D., Wood, D., Landay, K., Lester, P.B. & Lester, G.V. (2018). Autocratic leaders and authoritarian followers revisited: A review and agenda for the future. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), 105-122.
Hassan, A.M., Dellow, D.A. & Jackson, R.J. (2009). The AACC leadership competencies: Parallel views from the top. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 34(1-2), 180-198.
Hollander, E.P. & Julian, J.W. (1969). Contemporary trends in the analysis of leadership processes. Psychological bulletin, 71(5), 387.
Hurd, J.A. (2020). Leadership Styles of Head NASCAR Executives: A Historical Perspective (Doctoral dissertation, East Tennessee State University).
Iman, N. & Lestari, W. (2019). The effect of leadership on job satisfaction, work motivation and performance of employees: Studies in AMIK Yapennas Kendari. African Journal of Business Management, 13(14), 465-473.
Ivancevich, J.M., Szilagyi, A.D. & Wallace, M.J. (1977). Organisational Behaviour and Performance. Goodyear Publishing Company Inc.
Jaafar, S.B., Zambi, N.M. and Fathil, N.F. (2021). Leadership style: Is it autocratic, democratic or laissezfaire. ASEAN Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(1), 1-7.
Jony, M.T.I., Alam, M.J., Amin, M.R. & Jahangir, M. (2019). The impact of autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles on the success of the organization: A study on the different popular restaurants of Mymensingh, Bangladesh. Canadian Journal of Business and Information Studies, 1(6), 2838.
Khan, M.I., Fiaz, M. and Taous, M., 2023. An Empirical Analysis of the Nexus between Leadership Styles and Employees’ Performance. Open Access Organization and Management Review, 1(2), 38-48.
Klath, E., Maxwell, A., & Bob, L. (2017). Human Resource Management. Ohio: Merit Publishing Company.
Kolb, D.A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.
Lincoln, Y.S., Lynham, S.A. & Guba, E.G. (2011). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences, revisited. The Sage handbook of qualitative research, 4(2), 97-128.
Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. Haper and Row.
Mugenda, O.M. & Mugenda, A.G. (2003). Research methods: Quantitative & qualitative apporaches (Vol. 2, No. 2). Nairobi: Acts press.
Noor, S. (2021), February. What is Covid New Normal and its Leadership Requirements?. In SJIM International Conference (Vol. 109).
Northouse, P.G. (1999). Leadership: Theory and practice (p. xxiii). Sage.
Ogbonna, E. & Harris, L.C. (2021). Leadership style, organizational culture and performance: empirical evidence from UK companies. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(4), 766–788.
Oussible, N. and Tinaztepe, C.I.H.A.N. (2022). The Effect of Democratic Leadership Style on Organizational Productivity by the mediating role of Employee performance in Turkey. International Journal of Recent Research in Commerce Economics and Management, 9(1), 6-16.
Peker, S., İnandı, Y. & Gılıç, F. (2018). The relationship between leadership styles (autocratic and democratic) of school administrators and the mobbing teachers suffer. European Journal of Contemporary Education.
Robbins, S., Waters-Marsh, T., Cacioppe, R., Millet, B. (1994). Organisational Behaviour - Concepts, Controversies, and Applications. Prentice Hall Limited. Australia.
Rue, L. & Byars, L. (2017). Management: Skills and Application. McGraw-Hill Education.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2019). Research Methods for Business Students (8th Ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Schermerhorn Jr, J.R. & McCarthy, A. (2004). Enhancing Performance Capacity in the Workplace: A Reflection on the Significance of the Individual. Irish Journal of Management, 25(2).
Setiawan, I.G.A. & Sheidu, C.F. (2024). Impact of Leadership Styles on Employees' Performance. International Journal of Economics And Management Review, 2(1),53-62.
Setiawan, R., Cavaliere, L.P.L., Navarro, E.R., Wisetsri, W., Jirayus, P., Chauhan, S.,Tabuena, A.C. & Rajan, R. (2021). The impact of leadership styles on employees productivity in organizations: A comparative study among leadership styles. Productivity Management, 26(1), 382-404.
Shanmugam, H., Juhari, J.A., Nair, P., Ken, C.S. & Guan, N.C. (2020). Impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in Malaysia: a single thread of hope. Malaysian Journal of Psychiatry, 29(1), 78-84.
Smajlović, S., Umihanic, B. & Turulja, L. (2019). The interplay of technological innovation and business model innovation toward company performance. Management: Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, 24(2), 63-79.
Smith, D.G. (1964). Pragmatism and the group theory of politics. American political science review, 58(3), 600-610.
Sudit, E.F. & Sudit, E.F. (1984). The Productivity Concept: Definition, Measurement and Managerial Importance. Productivity Based Management, 1-17.
Suprayitno, D. (2024). Leadership Style and Employee Productivity in Manufacturing Companies In Indonesia. Commercium: Journal of Business and Management, 2(2), 31-46.
Turcotte‐Légaré, N., Gaudet, M.C. & Doucet, O. (2023). Understanding the effects of empowering leadership on positive and negative performance behaviors: A manufacturing sector study. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration, 40(2), 218-231.
Wei, L. and Vasudevan, H.L. (2022). Leadership style and company performance in the manufacturing industry. Int. J. Hum. Capital Urban Manage, 7(3),14.
Winston, B.E. & Patterson, K. (2006). An integrative definition of leadership. International journal of leadership studies, 1(2), 6-66.
Xuefeng, Q. (2023). The effect of leadership style on employee motivation: A case study of manufacturing companies. Journal of Management and Administration Provision, 3(1), 12-16.
Yamane, T. (1973). Statistics, An Introductory Analysis, 2nd Ed., New York: Harper and Row; 886.
Yousef, D.A. (2000). Organizational commitment: a mediator of the relationships of leadership behavior with job satisfaction and performance in a non‐western country. Journal of managerial Psychology, 15(1), 6-24.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All articles published in our journal are licensed under CC-BY 4.0, which permits authors to retain copyright of their work. This license allows for unrestricted use, sharing, and reproduction of the articles, provided that proper credit is given to the original authors and the source.