Visionary Leadership and Organizational Commitment: The Mediating Effect of Leader Member Exchange (LMX)

K A S Dhammika

doi:10.4038/wjm.v4i1.7452

Abstract

Visionary leadership is one of the leadership aspects which have drawn much attention of researchers over the past years. As a result of this, it has been found that visionary leadership is positively associated with both organizational and employees outcomes. However, most of studies on visionary leadership has presumed a direct casual effect on these outcomes and has relatively neglected the indirect effect of visionary leadership by intervening with other organizational variables. The objective of the present study is to assess the effect of visionary leadership on organizational commitment (OC) with mediating effect of Leader Member Exchange (LMX).100 respondents were selected as the sample of the study using random sampling method. Standard questionnaires measuring visionary leadership, OC and LMX were administered for data collection. Hypotheses were formulated based on the literature review and tested with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). It was found that there is a positive and significant relationship between visionary leadership and OC. Further, it was revealed that there is a significant indirect effect of LMX on the relationship between visionary leadership and OC. The direct impact of visionary leadership explains the much of variance of OC than the indirect effect through LMX. The implications of findings were discussed and further studies were proposed. Wayamba Journal of Management 2013 4(1): 1-10

Highlights

Visionary leaders can be found in every facet of society, whether business, government, social change movements, religious organizations, community groups or sports teams (Kirkpatrick, 2004)
Visionary leadership recorded a positive association with leader member exchange (β=0.44,p
The indirect relationship between visionary leadership and OC via LMX was statistically significant (β=0.34,p

Summary

Introduction

Visionary leaders can be found in every facet of society, whether business, government, social change movements, religious organizations, community groups or sports teams (Kirkpatrick, 2004). Visionary leadership is said to have positive effects on follower outcomes, resulting in high trust in the leader, high commitment to the leader, high levels of performance among followers, and high overall organizational performance (DuBrin, 1998). This range of positive outcomes are brought by the balance concern on both the organization and subordinates. Effective communication of visionary leadership changes subordinates attitudes and outputs resulting in organizational trasformations (Waldman, Ramirez, House, & Puranam, 2001). They often rehearse their speeches in order to present the desired image in a dramatic fashion

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