The relationship between retail store manager leadership styles and employee generational cohort, performance, and satisfaction

Abstract

The aging and retirement of Baby Boomers has resulted in Generations X and Y becoming the dominant retail workplace generational cohorts. Retail stores employ a high percentage of younger workers as a portion of their overall workforce and will experience changes in worker needs as generations change. Understanding how different leadership techniques affect younger retail workers may provide an understanding for all industries, as younger generations become the dominant group within the national workforce. The goal of the quantitative research study was to examine any predictive relationships among associates’ generational cohort, their managers’ leadership styles, and outcome variables of productivity, tenure, employee extra effort, perceived manager effectiveness, and employee satisfaction. Two hundred fifty usable responses were collected using a sequential cluster and stratified method to allow for adequate participants from each generational cohort while achieving national geographical generalizability. Bivariate correlational analyses and multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship among predictor and outcome variables. All generations’ satisfaction measures and older generations’ sales productivity positively related with transformational leadership. Transformational leadership was found to be positively related with outcome variables across generational cohorts without instance of a negative relationship. Because most retailers would want to influence these outcome variables positively, management’s use of transformational leadership is encouraged.

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