Does Leadership Style Determine Employee Turnover in Service-Based Companies?

Abstract

The empirical research on this issue of leadership style among 320 employees involved into a service industry showed that the association between leadership and the turnover intention was heterogeneous in that transformational leadership style was excellent related to more job satisfaction and significantly explained the turnover intentions albeit laissez-faire leadership style had a negative correlation with the intentions. The turnover intention was poorly and irrelevant related to transactional leadership and the other dimensions of control with other aspects of leadership. All scales proved to have excellent internal consistency as shown in psychometric evaluation and high sampling adequacy (KMO = .955; Bartlett’s p <.001) and, therefore, indicates reliability and construct validity of the measures. Results are in line with the evidence in the current time that transformational behaviors act as sources of motivation that minimize employee turnover and those supervisors who are inactive are those who increase risks of turnover. Pragmatic implications focus more on prioritising development of transformational leadership and implementing managerial mechanisms of accountability to ensure that turnover in the labourintensive service conditions are reduced. Future research recommendations would involve longitudinal monitoring of actual turnover events and use of mixed methods to measure these finL rest on their different granular mechanisms through which leadership through retention should be consented.