Leadership & Organizational Commitment

Literature is reviewed relevant to the impact of organizational leadership on organizational commitment. In addition to these two concepts, other concepts that affect the relationship between organizational leadership and organizational commitment also are addressed.

Approaches to Organizational Leadership

Leadership is the ability of one person to influence a group of persons toward the achievement of common goals (Yukl, 1994). When comparing leadership styles, the focus typically is on the effectiveness of leaders effectiveness. Effectiveness, in turn, typically is viewed as the extent to which the leader's group or organization performs its tasks successfully or attains its goals (House & Aditya, 1997).

One way that leadership behaviors may be described is by contrasting transformational and transactional leader behavior (Bass, 1985). Transformational leadership within the context of this paradigm is comprised of four components. These components are (1) idealized influence, (2) inspiration, (3) intellectual stimulation, and (4) individualized consideration. Idealized influence (charisma) is a process whereby the leader provides subordinates with a vision and a sense of mission and gains respect, trust, and confidence from subordinates (Shamir, Zakay, Breinin, & Popper, 1998). Inspirational leaders build the confidence of their subordinates, thereby influencing their ability to perform ass

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of empirical support. The types of transactional leadership that have received strong empirical support are (1) path-goal theory, and (2) vertical dyad theory (Bass, 1997). Organizational Commitment Organizational commitment is defined as a (1) strong desire to remain as a member of a specific organization, (2) willingness on the part of an individual to exert high levels of effort for a specific organization, and (3) belief in and acceptance of organizational values and goals by an individual (Benkhoff, 1997). The development of organizational commitment in an organization is a joint responsibility of human resources management, and line management (Young, Worchel, & Woehr, 1998). Theoretically, organizations and their members are seen in an exchange relationship. In such a relationship, each party makes demands on the other, for which each party provides something in return (Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard, & Werner, 1998). Investigations of organizational commitment have attempted to establish linkages between motivation, organizational performance, and organizational commitment. It has been found that (Young, Worchel, & Woehr, 1998): 1. Strong commitment is associated high levels of motivation and with low levels of abse
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Bernard Bass, MacKenzie Bommer, Pearson Chong, Pawar Eastman, Organizational Commitment, Schweiger Sapienza, Douglas McGregor, House Aditya, Worchel Woehr, Thorlakson Murray, organizational commitment, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, job satisfaction, organizational leadership, bass 1990, organizational conflict, transformational leaders, leadership styles, organizational culture, leadership organizational commitment, house aditya 1997, schweiger sapienza 1995, korsgaard schweiger sapienza, organizational leadership organizational,
Approximate Word count = 5366
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)

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