THE IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR ON SUBORDINATE RESPONSES : THE HI-HI PARADIGM IN THE SINGAPORE CONTEXT

Abstract

Leadership is a universal human phenomenon and has long been a subject of study. The passage of leadership studies had passed from the trait approach, to the behavioural approach, and later, to the contingency approach. With the present focus on transformational leadership, there is a renewed emphasis on studying the characteristics of effective leaders once again. Thus, a new focus on leader behaviour is appropriate. The Ohio State studies had served as a base from which other theories were developed and its concepts are still highly relevant to the understanding of leadership. This prompted the present study. This study attempted to identify the impact of leaders' behaviour on subordinates' responses. It also attempted to identify the dominant leadership styles exhibited by Singaporean Chinese managers. A multiplicative model of the impact of leaders' behaviour on subordinates' responses was also compared and contrasted with an additive model and a single variable model. A questionnaire was used to survey a sample comprised of white collar workers who worked under the supervision of local Chinese managers. Two dimensions were used to measure leadership behaviour: consideration and initiating structure. Six dependent variables were used to provide a measure of subordinates' response to leaders' behaviour. These were role ambiguity, role conflict, internal work motivation, general job satisfaction, satisfaction with supervision, and organizational commitment. Consideration and initiating structure were split into high and low levels, resulting in four leadership styles. ANOVA procedures and multiple linear regression were used to analyse the data collected. Results indicated that there was no interaction between consideration and initiating structure. Consideration was the only critical leader behaviour dimension affecting role conflict and organizational commitment. Both consideration and initiating structure were positively related to general job satisfaction and satisfaction with supervision, and negatively related to role ambiguity. Leadership style was found to have no impact on internal work motivation. The multiplicative model of leadership was rejected due to the lack of interaction between consideration and initiating structure. There were, however, tentative support for an additive model of leadership behaviour. Lastly, the proportion of managers in this study who exhibited high levels of both consideration and initiating structure was higher than that for the other three leadership profiles. Implications arising from the findings of this study and the inherent weaknesses of it were also discussed.