St.

Paul College of Bocaue

Bocaue, Bulacan

A Correlational Study: Leadership Style and Job Satisfaction

At CSP Enterprises & Development Inc., Co.

Research Paper
12- ABM

Submitted by:

Leia Amidala N. Santos

Deanna Mae T. Gicale
Marika Jeanne S.J. Perez
Gea Kaila S. Santos
Aliya Pauline D.C. Dela Torre

Submitted to:

Dr. Marilou L. Galman

 Chapter 1

The Problem and Its Background

Introduction

Organization is the process of identifying and grouping work to be performed, defining and
delegating responsibility and authority and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling
people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives (Louis Allen, 1958). It
composed of employees which guided by a leader to fulfill all the obligations needed on their work.
It is the process so combining the work which individuals or groups have to perform with the facilities
necessary for its execution, that the duties so performed provide the best channels for the efficient,
systematic, positive and coordinated application of the available effort (Oliver Sheldon, 1923). The
world of business is constantly faced with challenges by the external environment, demand for
increased participation and competition. Employees are seen as intangible assets that contribute to
the continued success and development of an organization. (Uhl-Bien, Marion and
McKelvey,2007:299) In this study, the researchers would like to conduct in CSP Development &
Enterprises Co., Inc. as the organization. This company is located at Araneta Avenue, Quezon City.
It offers services such as selling and fixing compressors, dryers, internal parts of machines or other
machines that will be using by the other company. It consists of 5 departments; Accounting Dept.,
Service, Finance, Warehouse, and Operational Department. Each department has its own head
managers leading all the employees under of it. Since employees are the intangible assets of the
company and employees are guided by a leader, so leaders should perform appropriate leadership to
have a productive output at work.

Leadership is defined as the ability to evaluate and or forecast a long-term plan or policy and
influence the followers towards the achievement of the said strategy. (Adeoya Mayowa, 2009).
Leadership is also viewed as a process which influence people to bring out the best in themselves and
result to a better-quality performance. As time goes by, concept of leadership changed and has
evolved through years. Furthermore, leadership has its own different styles, each style determines
what kind of leadership that a leader use in leading the employees. A leadership style used by leaders
can affect the organizational performance in a positive as well as in a negative way. Positively,
leadership style creates a stimulating work climate and makes the climate become supportive, fair
and encouraging. The leadership style used by a leader can also affect the organizational performance
by creating a climate that is filled with tension and fear or that is an unsupportive and critical
(Warrick, 1981). (Lewin, 1930) established a framework to explain the different behavior of the
leader. He then suggested that there are three different types of leaders styles which are autocratic
leaders, democratic leaders, and lastly laissez-faire leaders.

Autocratic or also called as Authoritarian leadership style are characterized as domineering.

They make policies and decide appropriate division of labor from afar. They tend to be distant from
their group. This leadership is gained through punishment, threat, demands, orders, rules and
regulations. Its function includes unilateral rule-making, task-assignment, and problem solving while
the followers include adhering to the leader's instruction without question or comment. This
leadership style is appropriate in setting with a new employee, limited decision-making time,
resources etc., while it is not suited to environment in which members desire to share their opinions
and participate in decision-making processes. (Gastil, 1994)

According to Gastil (1994), Democratic leaders are characterized by collective decision-

making, camaraderie, active member or follower involvement, fair praise, and restrained criticism;
they facilitate collective decision-making. Its function includes distributing responsibility within the
group or organization, empowering member and facilitating group deliberations while the followers
include willingness to take personal responsibility for the group or organization, willingness to be
held accountable for their actions and decisions, willingness to maintain their group's autonomy and
freedom, willingness to take on the role of leader as needed or appropriate, and willingness to work
with their leaders. Lastly, it is appropriate in settings such as an international association, a democratic
nation, a worker-owner corporation, a public university and etc while it is not appropriate and not
useful in groups and organization with clearly defined and unchanging guidelines, roles and practice.

Laissez-faire leaders are characterized as uninvolved with their followers and members; in
fact, laissez-faire leadership is an absence of leadership style. This style makes no policies or problem
solving and its leaders have very little to no authority within their group organization. Its function
includes trusting their members into the group or organization while the followers include self-
monitoring, problem solving, and producing successful end products. It is appropriate in setting such
as science laboratories or established companies with long-term employees while it is not appropriate
with a setting in which the members require feedback, direction, oversight flexibility or praise. (Gastil
1994) Through all these leadership style which obtains by all the leaders can lead to have a satisfied
job to all employees of the company.

Job satisfaction has been characterized by researchers as essential to organizational

performance (Mathieu, 1991; Ostroff, 1992). It is an affective reaction to a job that results from a
persons comparison of outcomes with those that are desired, anticipated or deserved (Oshagbemi,
1999). The more the employees are satisfied with their jobs, the more efforts they will exert to achieve
organizational objectives (Blakely et al., 2003). An employee experiencing high levels of
dissatisfaction may be unable to function effectively in his/her job. If employees are dissatisfied with
their jobs it will show adverse results like withdrawal behavior, growing cost, lowering profits and
finally customers dissatisfaction (Allen & Wilburn, 2002).

In this case, the researchers would like to conduct a study regarding on the relationship
between job satisfaction and leadership styles among the employees and leaders of CSP Development
& Enterprises Co., Inc. The study also intended on determining which leadership style influences the
overall job satisfaction of an individual at the company. Findings of the study will contribute the
effectiveness, thereby adding to the competitive advantage in the company. It will also contribute to
the future research that would be conducting by the other researchers. This study would be beneficial
to the organization, employees, and other researchers. Furthermore, will allow the organization to
become more effective by understanding the employees of the company that relate job satisfaction.
Other researchers conducting similar studies would be able to compare their result to this study and
can also add to what is already known in this area.

The major contribution of this study is to determine if the employees are satisfied with their
job through the leadership of given to them by their leaders. Specifically, in this study, the researchers
would like to identify the dominant leadership style among the five departments then later on will
determine if the dominant leadership style used by the leaders are appropriate to those employees
under it which would results to their job satisfaction. In addition, this study would benefit the
employees, leaders, also the company itself. The other researchers would also be the one of the
beneficiaries of this study because this study can be used as reference for a future research.
 Theoretical Framework

Herzberg Two Factor Theory

a. Hygiene factors- Hygiene factors are those job factors which are essential for existence of
motivation at workplace. hygiene factors are those factors which when adequate/reasonable in
a job, pacify the employees and do not make them dissatisfied. The hygiene factors symbolized
the physiological needs which the individuals wanted and expected to be fulfilled.

Hygiene factors include:

Pay - The pay or salary structure should be appropriate and reasonable. It must be equal and
competitive to those in the same industry in the same domain.
Company Policies and administrative policies - The company policies should not be too
rigid. They should be fair and clear. It should include flexible working hours, dress
code, breaks, vacation, etc.
Fringe benefits - The employees should be offered health care plans (mediclaim), benefits
for the family members, employee help programmes, etc.
Physical Working conditions - The working conditions should be safe, clean and hygienic.
The work equipments should be updated and well-maintained.
Status - The employees status within the organization should be familiar and retained.
Interpersonal relations - The relationship of the employees with his peers, superiors and
subordinates should be appropriate and acceptable. There should be no conflict or
humiliation element present.
Job Security - The organization must provide job security to the employees.

b. Motivational factors - According to Herzberg, the hygiene factors cannot be regarded as

motivators. The motivational factors yield positive satisfaction. These factors are inherent to
work. These factors motivate the employees for a superior performance. These factors are called
satisfiers. These are factors involved in performing the job. Employees find these factors
intrinsically rewarding. The motivators symbolized the psychological needs that were
perceived as an additional benefit.

Motivational factors include:

Recognition - The employees should be praised and recognized for their accomplishments
by the managers.
Sense of achievement - The employees must have a sense of achievement. This depends on
the job. There must be a fruit of some sort in the job.
Promotional opportunities - There must be growth and advancement opportunities in an
organization to motivate the employees to perform well.
Responsibility - The employees must hold themselves responsible for the work. The
managers should give them ownership of the work. They should minimize control
but retain accountability.
Meaningfulness of the work - The work itself should be meaningful, interesting and
challenging for the employee to perform and to get motivated.

This theory is relevant to the study because it contains factors need to be considered
for the employees obtain satisfaction to their work. These factors will help the researchers to
know the needs of employees in order to get a high level of satisfaction from their work.
Maslows Need Hierarchy Theory

Maslows needs hierarchy theory was one of the first theories to examine the important
contributors to job satisfaction. The theory suggests that human needs form a five-level hierarchy.

Maslows needs hierarchy was developed to explain human motivation in general. However,
its main tenants are applicable to the work setting, and have been used to explain job satisfaction.
Within an organisation, financial compensation and healthcare are some of the benefits which help
an employee meet their basic physiological needs. Safety needs can manifest itself through employees
feeling physically safe in their work environment, as well as job security and/ or having suitable
company structures and policies. When this is satisfied, the employees can focus on feeling as though
they belong to the workplace. This can come in the form of positive relationships with colleagues and
supervisors in the workplace, and whether or not they feel they are a part of their team/ organisation.
Once satisfied, the employee will seek to feel as though they are valued and appreciated by their
colleagues and their organisation. The final step is where the employee seeks to self-actualise; where
they need to grow and develop in order to become everything they are capable of becoming. Although
it could be seen as separate, the progressions from one step to the next all contribute to the process of
self-actualisation. Therefore, organisations looking to improve employee job satisfaction should
attempt to meet the basic needs of employees before progressing to address higher-order needs.
However, more recently this approach is becoming less popular as it fails to consider the cognitive
process of the employee and, in general, lacks empirical supporting evidence. In addition, others have
found fault with the final stage of self-actualisation. The lack of a clear definition and conceptual
understanding of self-actualisation, paired with a difficulty of measuring it, makes it difficult to
measure what the final goal is or when it has been achieved.

This theory is relevant to the study because Job Satisfaction is connected to the hierarchy of needs.
For example, the self-actualization, they need to grow and develop in order to be capable. This theory
also determines the needs of the employees that needed to be considered in order to obtain
satisfaction.

Leadership Style

Lewins Leadership Theory

In the 1930, Kurt Lewin established a framework to explain the different behavior of the leader. He
then suggested that there are three different types of leaders styles which are autocratic leaders,
democratic leaders and lastly laissez-faire leaders. Both intergroup (Alderfer, Alderfer, Tucker, and
Tucker, 1980) and embedded group (Thomas and Alderfer, 1980) theories identified two different
type of groups exits in organization which is identity group and organizational group.

This theory is relevant to the study because it indicated the three different types of leadership styles
which determines the dominant leadership style used in the company. Each leadership has its own
definition and styles which would be easily to identify which among the leadership style dominates
in the company.
 Statement of the Problem

Main Problem:

Is there a relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction at CSP Enterprises &
Development Inc., Co.?

Specific Problem:

1) What is the dominant leadership style used by leaders of each departments?

2) Is there a relationship between the leadership style used by the leaders and job satisfaction of the
employees in each department?
i) Finance Department
ii) Marketing Department
iii) Operation Department
iv) Service Department
v) Warehouse Department

Hypothesis

Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction at CSP
Enterprises & Development Inc., Co.

Alternative Hypothesis: There is a relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction at CSP
Enterprises & Development Inc., Co.

Significance of the Study

This study will benefit the company and helps them improve their management, service and
operation itself. In addition, the researcher would like that through this study the CSP Enterprises &
Development Inc., Co attain good service and good leadership that can satisfy and fulfill the
employees need which leads to a greater company.

Employees. They can improve and develop their skills that allow them to a greater variety of work
and increased their ability. It also improves the relationship between their leaders because of
improved satisfaction.

Company. Employees satisfaction and leaders leadership style can lead to a higher profitability,
greater competitiveness and better benefits for their employees. It can also improve the loyalty and
commitment of the employees for the company to improve and profit more.
Leaders. They can improve their leadership style to make the employees satisfied and the company
better. It contributes to improved quality work as a result of loyal commitment to the company.

Researchers. They can benefit through this study by using this as a reference for their future research.
Encourages other researchers to investigate areas of leadership style and job satisfaction that are not
addressed in this research. It will also encourage them to conduct the same research and use this study
as reference.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

The main purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between leadership style and
job satisfaction. This study focuses on the dominant leadership style used by the leaders of five
departments; Finance, Marketing, Operational, Service and Warehouse Department at CSP
Enterprises & Development Inc., Co. In this study, the respondents are the whole individual working
at this company even the leaders who manages it except to the president of this company. It is only
limited to the three-leadership style such as autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership style.
The emphasis was on relationship between the leadership style of leaders among each departments
and job satisfaction of the employees under each department.

Definition of Terms

Conceptual Definition

1. Job Satisfaction

Conceptual Definition

Job satisfaction is a workers sense of achievement and success on the job. It is generally perceived
to be directly linked to productivity as well as to personal well-being. Job satisfaction implies doing
a job one enjoys, doing it well and being rewarded for ones efforts. Job satisfaction further implies
enthusiasm and happiness with ones work. Job satisfaction is the key ingredient that leads to
recognition, income, promotion, and the achievement of other goals that lead to a feeling of
fulfillment (Kaliski,2007). Job satisfaction can be defined also as the extent to which a worker is
content with the rewards he or she gets out of his or her job, particularly in terms of intrinsic
motivation (Statt, 2004). Job satisfaction is a complex and multifaceted concept which can mean
different things to different people. Job satisfaction is usually linked with motivation, but the nature
of this relationship is not clear. Satisfaction is not the same as motivation. Job satisfaction is more of
an attitude, an internal state. It could, for example, be associated with a personal feeling of
achievement, either quantitative or qualitative (Mullins, 2005)

Operational Definition

Job Satisfaction is measured by conducting a Job Satisfaction Survey. Out of 30 questions on the Job
satisfaction survey, job satisfaction measures into 5 classifications; Great Job, Good Job, OK Job,
Bad Job, and Depressing Job. The researcher floats the survey among all the employees of the
company.
2. Leadership Styles

Conceptual Definition

Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and
motivating people. As seen by the employees, it includes the total pattern of explicit and implicit
actions performed by their leader (Newstrom, Davis, 1993). Leadership is defined as the ability to
evaluate and or forecast a long-term plan or policy and influence the followers towards the
achievement of the said strategy. (Adeoya Mayowa, 2009). Handy (1992) insisted on the importance
of the leader setting a vision, and sharing this vision with others: "A leader shapes and shares a vision
which gives point to the work of others". Rost (1993) also emphasized that leadership was a
relationship process oriented to achieve some common goals: Leadership is an influence relationship
among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes".

Operational Definition

The Leadership style is measured in which is the most dominant and less dominant leadership style
of the leaders by the use of the three common styles of leadership; autocratic, democratic and laissez-
faire leadership style using the Leadership Style Questionnaires. In this case, it will have determined
the leadership style of the leaders of the five departments including the vice president excluded the
president of the company.