Leadership Styles of General Managers and Job Satisfaction Antecedent of Middle Managers in 5-Star Hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

Leadership styles may differ across countries particularly in aspects such as culture, approach, and language. Expatriate managers in Malaysian 5-star hotels, may have a different approach from local managers, hence the levels of the job satisfaction of middle managers may differ too. Information is still lacking on the influence of expatriate managers leadership styles on employees’ job satisfaction in Malaysian 5-star hotels. The purpose of this paper was twofold, to shed light on employees’ job satisfaction under the leadership of expatriate managers as well as the differences in leadership styles of local and expatriate managers. Results showed that transformational leadership styles such as; idealized influence (behavior), intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation had a significant positive effect on employees job satisfaction. Even transactional leadership styles of expatriates such as contingent reward produced significant positive effect on employees job satisfaction. However transactional leadership of management by exception (passive) of expatriate managers had a significant negative effect on job satisfaction. The combination of five leadership styles of expatriate managers, was able to produce 92.2% of employees’ job satisfaction. Except for management by exception (passive), the other four leadership styles had a positive effect on job satisfaction. Results further revealed that expatriate managers have different leadership styles, with higher individual consideration, and contingent reward score, but lower management by exception (passive) score compared to local managers. The difference in leadership styles enabled expatriate managers to achieve higher job satisfaction scores compared to local managers.