Relationship between leadership personality types and source of power and leadership styles among managers

Abstract

The aim of this study is to indentify the relationship between power style, personality dimension and Leadership style. The sample of this study consists of 300 respondents from six selected company and were chosen by using simple random sampling. Quantitative method was used in this study and the data was collected by using questionnaire which consist of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQx5), Rahim Power Inventory (RLPI) and Big Five Personality Questionnaire (BFPQ). This questionnaire was used to answer the research questions of leadership style based on leaders’ power and leaders’ personality among the managers. The reliability of the questionnaire was done by using Cronbach alpha to find the internal consistency of the questionnaire through pilot study and it shows that the alpha ranged between 0.71 and 0.874. The result of this study shows that there was a positive correlation between transformational leadership style and expert and referent powers (r = 0.694 and r = 0.544, respectively), negative correlation between transformational leadership style and legitimate power, coercive and reward powers (r = -0.428, 0.537, and -0.470 respectively), positive correlation between transactional leadership style and reward power (r = 0.205). A result also shows that agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience had a positive correlation with transformational leadership style (r = 0.268, 0.575 and 0.130, respectively). This study shows that expert power, conscientiousness and coercive power predicted transformational leadership in the organization (beta = 0.464, 0.266 and -0.145, respectively). Conversely, reward power predicted to transactional leadership (beta = 0.205).