Leadership style and job satisfaction in higher education institutions

Abstract

Purpose – Although leadership is found to have impact on the followers’ attitudes and performance there is a gap in leadership studies in HEIs, especially having Lithuania in mind. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of leadership style on job satisfaction of faculty in higher education institutions (HEI). Design/methodology/approach – In order to investigate before mentioned problem, the representative quantitative empirical research was conducted in 2013. It includes 72 faculty members and ten supervisors from Lithuanian public and private universities. The survey was conducted to check how leadership styles of supervisors influence faculty job satisfaction and compare the opinion of supervisors and subordinates. Findings – The empirical research revealed significant positive impact of leadership style on job satisfaction of faculty where servant leadership style has been found to have the highest positive significant impact on job satisfaction of faculty while controlling autocrat leadership style has the lowest impact. Research limitations/implications – There are several implications for further research. It can be expanded whether geographically (e.g. comparative analysis in different countries) or institutionally (e.g. in other educational institutions, such as schools or pre-schools). Practical implications – Practical implications reveal that supervisors have the power to increase the levels of job satisfaction of their faculty members, by defining their role as a leader, demonstrating certain leadership behaviors. Originality/value – This survey covers the area which lacks academic research, namely, the impact of leadership on HEI faculty. Previous leadership studies in HEI focus on particular leadership style demonstrated (van Ameijde, 2009), the impact of leadership on culture (Asmawi et al., 2013), organizational effectiveness (Siddique et al., 2011) and other factors. However, very few of them (one of the examples is the study of Webb, 2009 in USA) investigate the direct managers’ leadership style and faculty job satisfaction. Besides, the previous surveys have not covered as many leadership styles as this one does.

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