The Impact of Authentic Leadership on Dangote’s Employees’ Job Performance Using the Leader-member Exchange as a Mediator
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to establish the impact of authentic leadership on Dangotes’s employees job performance using the leader-member exchange as a mediator. The specific objectives:
- Evaluate the influence of authentic leadership on Dangotes’s employees job performance
- Assess the impact of leader-member on Dangotes’s employees job performance
- Investigate the combined effect of authentic leadership and leader-member on Dangotes’s job performance
CHAPETR TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction and Definition of terms
This chapter renders a review of the literature on the three primary constructs explored in this study: authentic leadership, employee job performance, and leader-member exchange. Reviews of existing theoretical and empirical studies on the construct were exhibited and the theoretical frameworks underpinning this study were discussed. Given the international context of this study, the chapter also overviewed studies conducted in international settings and the current state of activities within Nigerian organizations. The chapter concludes with a summary of the items covered in the chapter
Authentic leadership: A leadership style that emphasizes candid communication, high moral objectives, balanced processing, and a willingness to self-evaluate (Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, & May, 2004).
Informed decision-making or balanced processing: The act of seeking and including opposing viewpoints and various options in ones decision-making process prior to deciding on a course of action (Avolio et al., 2004).
Internalized moral perspective: The drive to conduct oneself with a predilection for justice and ethics (Gardner & Avolio, 2005).
Self-awareness: Being cognizant of one’s own abilities, principles, and weaknesses (Gardner & Avolio, 2005).
Transparency: A state of being forthright and truthful (Avolio et al., 2004).
Work culture: The nature of an organization and as defined by the types of interactions, relations, customs, and attitudes that are a part of that entity (Pilch & Turska, 2015).
Authentic Leadership
Authenticity in industry involves being tactfully genuine (Sharif & Scandura, 2014). Individuals may be candid in their beliefs about how their organization should be run but politic enough to know when and how to voice concerns and ideas for improvement (Sharif & Scandura, 2014). Additionally, authenticity means being keenly aware of ones’ own character and how traits influence others (Hannah et al., 2011).
Authenticity involves understanding that personal development is a fluid process withchanges occurring over time, so that politic expression of ones’ beliefs and values and patient endurance rather than pursuit of perfection is the object (Sharif & Scandura, 2014). Authenticity is based on morals and self-concept, and how that image translates into actions that influence others (Hsiung, 2012). This style of self-management and its potential influences directly relate to the questions of whether authentic leadership traits contribute to increased employee job satisfaction (Hsiung, 2012; Wang & Hsieh, 2013). Additionally, authenticity involves the use of informed decision-making which includes seeking the input of others, regardless of rank, prior to making big decisions, so that followers will be encouraged by a sense of involvement in their organization (Gardner & Avolio, 2005). The authentic leader acts as a positive role model for employees, thus promoting authenticity in their behavior (Avey, Avolio, & Luthans, 2011). When leaders and nonmanagerial employees find common ground in their morals or value systems, such as with authentic leadership, there may be a greater opportunity for agreement in the best way to achieve the mission of their organization under existing company policies (Gutierrez, Candel, & Carver, 2012).
Authenticity is the concept on which the authentic leadership theory is based, and the authentic leadership style is based on authentic leadership theory (Ötken & Cenkci, 2012). Authentic leadership theory consists of constructs such as transparency, informed decision-making or balanced processing, high ethics, and self-awareness – all of which may be instrumental in bringing about the type of ethical leader image that many organizations desire (Ötken & Cenkci, 2012). Authenticity as a leadership style is not the only management style that involves an attention to ethics; however, it is the distinction of transparency and self-awareness that distinguishes authentic leadership as a viable way to manage and encourage employees (Valentine et al., 2014). As companies work to develop work cultures that promote job satisfaction and confidence in an organizational mission, a primary consideration should be the needs of workers on every level (Jacques, Garger, Lee, & Ko, 2015). For example, organizations may benefit from choosing new leaders who have characteristics that can be paired with those of existing nonmanagerial staff, such as when leaders and direct reports share authentic characteristics (Hsiung, 2012).
Authentic leadership traits can be a catalyst to an improved work culture through ethical practices and employee inclusiveness (Hsiung, 2012). An assumption of authentic leadership theory is that self-awareness and high moral values in a leader will improve interactions between leaders and followers (Valsania et al., 2012). Another assumption is that when a leader engages in transparency, so that they are blatant regarding their ideas and opinions, their followers are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs (Wang & Hsieh, 2013). Authentic traits such as fairness and candidness may enhance work relations between leaders and nonmanagerial workers (Chernyak-Hai & Tziner, 2015; Wang & Hsieh, 2013).
CHAPETR THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
Research Design A quantitative research paradigm was used for this study. A quantitative approach was deemed appropriate because such approach aims to investigate relationships among variables (Rawbone, 2015). Qualitative research, on the other hand, is more exploratory and is appropriate when facing a new phenomenon with insufficient research literature or when a phenomenon is ill-defined (Rawbone, 2015). A correlational research design underpinned this study. Correlational design seeks to investigate the association between variables. The main aim of this design is to measure possible relationship between two or more variables (Leedy & Omrod, 2010) as in the case of this study
Sources of data collection
The primary source of Data was employed in this study. Specifically the questionnaire research instrument was adopted in the study There was a statement informing participants that they needed to respond to survey questions in one sitting, and that questions were not timed so that participants may take as long as they would like when responding (Boyle, Whittaker, Eyal, & McCarthy, 2017). An estimated completion time of 7-10 minutes was also noted.
Survey responses were retrieved from the staff members of Dangote Cement. Noincentive was offered in exchange for participation. The online survey was anonymous. Confidential data has been stored on a desktop computer in a locked office and was only accessible by the researcher. Data will be destroyed one year after the completion of dissertation requirements has been determined.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Introductions
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the relationship between authentic leadership traits in employees under supervision and job satisfaction through the examination of four research questions as follows:
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND LIMITATION OF STUDY
Introduction
In this chapter, summary of the findings in the study was explained . The chaper then conclude and indicate with the limitations experienced in the study and made recommendations for future research immediately following was my general closing remarks.
Summary
The critical influence of leadership on employees and organizational performances has been increasingly studied and discussed in the management and HRD literature (Bohn & Grafton, 2002). However, little attention has been paid to how authentic leadership behavior influences and changes employee engagement (Avolio et al., 2004; Luthans & Avolio, 2003) and ethical culture (Brown & Trevino, 2006), particularly in the Nigerian context. Authentic leadership is a relatively new topic of research in the management and the HRD domains (Peus et al., 2012) and it has been said to be a leadership style that allows leaders and organizations to meet the raised expectations of fairness, morality, and social responsibility held by employees and organizational stakeholders (Kiersch, 2012). 100 This study was designed to examine the relationships between authentic leadership, employee engagement, and ethical culture in Nigerian organizations. Survey data collected from 457 respondents in three Nigerian organizations was used to test the following four hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: In Nigerian organizations, authentic leadership behaviors will have a positive impact on employee engagement. Hypothesis 2: In Nigerian organizations, authentic leadership behaviors will have a positive impact on ethical culture. Hypothesis 3: In Nigerian organizations, ethical culture will have a positive impact on employee engagement. Hypothesis 4: In Nigerian organizations, ethical culture will mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee engagement. Upon examining statistical appropriateness and confirming the acceptable validity and reliability of the data, a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was used to examine how authentic leadership behavior directly or indirectly influences employee engagement and ethical culture in Nigerian organizations. Results indicated that authentic leadership had a statistically significant direct positive influence on employees engagement (SPC = 0.18, t = 4.82) and on ethical culture (SPC = 0.83, t = 17.91) supporting H1 and H2. This reaffirms the results of the previous studies that showed authentic leadership influencing organizational performance via employee engagement and ethical culture (Hmieleski et al., 2012; Khan, 2010; Jensen & Luthans, 2006; Walumbwa et al., 2011). The hypothesized model also yielded a statistically significant direct positive impact of ethical culture on employee engagement (SPC = 0.81, t = 17.46), supporting H3 as observed in prior studies (Hyvo¨nen et al., 2010; Kinnunen et al., 2008). Finally, Lisrel output 101 indicated that the direct standard path coefficient between leadership authenticity and employee engagement was significantly reduced to (SPC = 0.18, t = 4.82) in the mediated model from (SPC = 0.85, t = 17.22) unmediated model. Therefore, the result indicates a partial mediation effect of ethical culture on the relationship between authentic leadership style and employee engagement in Nigerian organizations, thus partially supporting H3a. This shows that authentic leadership has an indirect influence on the employee engagement through the ethical culture they create in their organizations as affirmed in previous studies (Clapp-Smith et al., 2009; Silva et al., 20
Conclusion
The results of this research imply that authentic leadership characteristics, namely transparency, informed decision-making, ethics, and self-assessment, are not restricted to those in supervisory or management positions. Subordinate employees can also employ authentic traits, and those who strongly utilize authentic traits also have significant levels of satisfaction when it comes to cocworker and general job satisfaction in comparison to those who did not score high on the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (Unanue et al., 2017). This relates to Walumbwa’s conclusion that authentic leadership is positively associated with employee job satisfaction (Walumbwa, Luthans, Avey, & Oke, 2011). The results also imply that possessing authentic traits does not necessarily mean that an individual is satisfied with all aspects of their workplace, such as the lack of task and leader satisfaction found as a result of this study.
These results should spur additional research into the effectiveness of authentic leadership characteristics in the workplace. As organizations strive to improve their bottom line by modifying production techniques, globalizing, outsourcing, and streamlining onboarding methods, reduction of costs associated with turnover, by improving retention rates through increased job satisfaction could be worthwhile (Peus et al., 2012; Wiersema & Zhang, 2013). For many working adults, most of their day is spent in the workplace, making their work culture an ideal place for social change to take root. Training and enhancement of character traits that result in ethical treatment, inclusion, and transparent course of action and policies that improve work conditions may, indeed, contribute to positive change
Scope and limitation of the study
Limitations
Although this study did result in data that implied a strong association between variables, there were limitations. One limitation to the generalizability of the results is that the ALQ and JDI surveys are both self-reporting instruments, and it is possible that some participants may have trouble interpreting the questions. Additionally, biographical information was not requested in this study. The lack of such data could be a limitation as it would have allowed for additional conclusions which may have enhanced the understanding of how authenticity in subordinate employees influences job satisfaction according to gender, age, race, etc. Likewise, information regarding educational level of subordinate employees was not collected and may have shown an association between the level of education of those who score high on either scale, versus those with relatively little formal education.
Chapter 3 provided information on the participant criteria the fact that a convenience sampling method was used as well as the exclusion/inclusion criteria. Caution should be used, therefore, while reviewing the findings, because participants consisted of Dangote’s employees. In other words, the sample may not be representative of the current or previously employed adult population in general.
A sampling limitation is that convenience sampling was used, so that participants were chosen due to their accessibility. Although, cost effective, this method may not result in a sample that is representative of the entire population of working adults, thus there is a possibility of a sampling error. If a sampling error exists, then findings may not be generalizable.
References
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