The quintessence of leadership: antecedents and consequences for employee well-being and organisational commitment

Sankae, Nopdol (2014) The quintessence of leadership: antecedents and consequences for employee well-being and organisational commitment. (PhD thesis), Kingston University, .

Abstract

This thesis investigates the quintessence of leadership in terms of antecedents and consequences, focusing on the leadership traits and styles that relate to employee work-related attitudes. The thesis sheds light on the distinct traits of leaders/managers in the context of the Five-Factor Model of personality and the congruent leadership styles that reflect directly on employee behaviours, work-related attitudes, and organisational performance. Unlike most of the existing studies exploring the antecedents and consequences of leadership, which rely predominantly on small samples and contemporaneous correlations, this thesis uses large-scale survey data to provide a detailed investigation of the influence of gender and sector difference in influencing the triadic relationship personality-leadership-employee attitudes and behaviour. The thesis provides answers to the three main research questions. The first research question is whether there are specific personality traits that can explain the propensity of individuals to become managers and undertake leadership roles. The second question explores the relationship between leadership style at the organisational level and employee work-related attitudes i.e. job related to well-being. Finally, the third question examines whether leadership style at organisational level can build employee work-related attitudes, and more specifically organisational commitment. The findings confirm the importance of personality traits as strong predictors of managerial/leadership roles. Likewise, management/leadership style at the organisational level has a significant influence on employee job related well-being and employee organisational commitment. In particular, the role of trust in leaders, as both a moderator and a mediator, affecting this relationship within particular industrial sectors is confirmed. These findings contribute to the existing theoretical and empirical literature on the antecedents and consequences of leadership.

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