Leadership Behavior and Organizational Commitment: An Empirical Study of Educational Professionals

Abstract

One of the important factors influencing perceptions of the existence of organizational commitment is leadership behaviors. It is argued that leadership behaviors are developed to humanize and renormalize the workplace. In various studies, leadership behaviors were evaluated as antecedents of organizational commitment. In this sense, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between leadership behaviors and organizational commitment (OC). This study is based on the behavioral approach of the leadership. Data were obtained from 150 individuals. Results indicated that over all leadership behavior and organizational commitment of educational professionals have a strong positive correlation. A significant effect of leadership behavior on organizational commitment was also found through regression analysis. Moreover, it was found that initiation structure pattern of leadership behavior is negatively related with Affiliation commitment while positively with exchange commitment; however this has no relationship with Identification commitment. While consideration pattern of the leadership behavior is strongly correlated with Identification commitment a dimension of OC, further it was concluded that this has not any relationship with affiliation and exchange commitment dimensions of OC.

Keywords: organizational commitment (OC), leadership behavior, principals, teachers, initiation structure