Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the leadership style of the head in department through the three types of leadership styles practiced which were transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership on the performance of administrative staff in one of the premier education universities in Malaysia. In addition, this study also sought to identify which leadership style of the head in department was a more dominant predictor on the performance of the administrative staff when the leadership styles (transformational, transactional and laissez-faire) were analyzed simultaneously. The quantitative approach was utilized in this study. The sample survey method was carried out involving 234 administrative staff as the respondents of the study. The sample was selected by using the simple random sampling technique and the data was collected using questionnaires. The data analysis was conducted using the Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) involving descriptive analysis (frequency and percentage). Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) version 7 software was used to perform multi-level analysis as the nature of the study data involved various levels of individual data nested (groups) in the organization. The analysis showed that transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership of the head in department was a positive significant with the in-role and extra-role performance of the administrative staff when analyzed separately. However, when the transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership of the head in department were analyzed simultaneously, they clearly showed that all these three leadership styles did not influence the in-role performance of the administrative staff. Interestingly in this study, only transformational leadership of the head of department proved a dominant influence on the extra-role performance of administrative staff compared to transactional and laissez-faire leadership. The findings of this study provided empirical evidence that although transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership of head of department could improve the in-role and extra-role performance of the administrative staff, this study proved that transformational leadership of the head of department could move to extra-role performance compared to other leadership styles.
Highlights
Education is a nation’s asset in forming and producing quality human capital who can compete with other citizens of the world
This has raised the question to the researchers: are the performance scores of these administrative staff influenced by the leadership style practised by the head of department or are they caused by other factors?
The findings were supported by Gottfredson and Aguinis (2017), who state that transformational leadership seems to be the most effective and dominant concept in leadership research; transformational leadership style is more effective and preferred by leaders compared to other leadership styles (Egan, Sarros, & Santora, 1995). This present study clearly stated that transformational leadership styles of the head of department can the influence on performance of administrative staffs especially in extra-role performance
Summary
Education is a nation’s asset in forming and producing quality human capital who can compete with other citizens of the world. It was found that the percentage of the administrative staff in one of the Malaysian premier education university who had scored less than 70 marks in their performance was 8.63 per cent in 2015 compared to only 5.40 per cent in 2014. This has raised the question to the researchers: are the performance scores of these administrative staff influenced by the leadership style practised by the head of department or are they caused by other factors?
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