Abstract
This chapter examines some of the most widely accepted leadership styles deployed in Zambian colleges and their impact on employee well-being outcomes such as employee stress, well-being, productivity, turnover, and absenteeism. The leadership styles assessed include transactional, laissez-faire, autocratic, authoritarian, and transformational leadership. Qualitative comparative design is used to capture and understand the interplay between leadership styles and organisational well-being. The chapter will explain at length the advantages of more relational leadership styles (i.e., transformational leadership) in terms of reduced stress, turnover, and absenteeism in Zambian colleges of education.
TopBackground
The purpose of the chapter is to examine some of the most widely accepted leadership styles in three selected Zambian Colleges of Education. These include transactional, laissez-faire, autocratic, authoritarian, and transformational leadership. The chapter examines how and whether these leadership styles impact employee well-being outcomes such as employee stress, well-being, productivity, turnover, and absenteeism.
Colleges of Education, as educational organisations, are expected to foster leadership styles that promote organisational well-being and success. For instance, workers or subordinates should feel motivated, inspired, and comfortable. Healthy organisations lead to healthier employees, which in turn reduces the need to take time off from work. Understanding the nexus between leadership and organisational well-being allows both subordinates and policy makers to develop a better understanding of how these institutions of higher learning are run. This in turn may lead them to making informed management decisions pertaining to the governance of the colleges. Because different people require different styles of leadership, this chapter discusses multiple leadership styles and suggests that organisational well-being may result in a happy and healthy workforce.
This chapter contributes to the literature in that it examines some of the most widely accepted leadership styles that lead to a desirable atmosphere by workers in Zambian colleges. The lack of healthy leadership and a focus on organisational well-being suggests a bleak future of the institutions. The implication of the study for Zambian Colleges of Education is that leaders of these organisations can use the findings of the chapter to select the best leadership style that relates to their environment and achieve the organisational well-being of their institutions.
The following section presents the rationale for the chapter and the definition of the assessed leadership styles (autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transactional, transformational) as well as the impact of these leadership styles on organisational well-being.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Transformational Leadership: In which leaders encourage, inspire, and motivate employees to innovate and create change.
Leadership: The action of leading a group of people or an organisation.
Well-Being: The state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.
Autocratic/Authoritative Leadership: Characterised by individual control over all decisions and little input from group members.
Laissez-Faire Leadership: Delegates decision-making power to subordinates.
Leadership Styles: A leader's characteristic behaviours when directing, motivating, guiding, and managing groups of people.
Transactional Leadership: Focuses on results, conforms to the existing structure of an organisation.
Colleges of Education: A division within a university that is devoted to scholarship in the field of education.
Democratic Leadership: The performance of three functions: distributing responsibility among the membership, empowering group members, and aiding the group's decision-making process.