The Link among Leadership Styles and Academic Staff Organizational Commitment: The Case of Dire Dawa University

Abstract

Effective leaders are enablers that directly point to competent and committed employees. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between leadership styles and academic staff organizational commitment. To realize the study, descriptive correlational design was undertaken.. This design was used to compare the three leadership styles along with correlation, regression and path analysis to investigate the relationship and extent of the predictors on the outcome variables. Thus, a total of 147 Dire Dawa University academic staff participated as sample population using stratified random sampling technique. The result of Pearson correlation indicates organizational commitment of the academic staff had a statistical significant positive association with both transformational and transactional leadership styles. Nevertheless, laissez-faire leadership style had no a statistically significant relationship with organizational commitment of the academic staff. On the other hand, stepwise multiple regression results showed organizational commitment dimensions were explained by both transformational and transactional leadership facets. On the bases of the finding, it is recommended that higher level administration of the University should develop the leadership skill of the department chairs through different leadership development initiatives to increase the organizational commitment of the academic staff. Further research is also needed to identify other factors that could increase the academic staff organizational commitment.