The Impact of Leadership Behavior on Organizational Commitment

1. Introduction

A continued globalization of markets, hostile takeovers and rapidly advancing technology has made it very difficult for the organization to achieve competitive advantage. Employees are one of the most important determinants and leading factors that determine the success of an organization in this competitive environment. Every organization must address its employee needs in order to maintain a productive work force. In today’s fast paced society turnover rate of the employees is quite high and employees keep switching among different jobs. One of the reason behind this that employee may not feel any sense of association with the organization and that they may not feel a sense of shared goals with the organization (Ackoff, 1999). Managers are interested in maximizing their workers’ level of commitment, as the costs of hiring and training new employees are high. Generally, it is expected that employees are more likely to stay with their organization and be highly committed when they can see a strong linkage between the organization and their work. One crucial reason of high turnover of the employees may be that the employee may not feel committed to the organization. When employees are dissatisfied at work, they are less committed and will look for other opportunities to quit. If opportunities are unavailable, they may emotionally or mentally withdraw from the organization. Thus, organizational commitment is an important attitude in assessing employees’ intention to quit and the overall contribution of the employee to the organization (Naser Shirbagi, 2007).

With the increasing speed and scale of change in organizations, managers are constantly seeking ways to generate employees’ commitment, which translates to ...

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