The impact of leadership styles on employee performance in the consultant civil engineering industry.
Date
2015
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Abstract
The consultant civil engineering industry forms part of the service industry. All designers
follow the same design code. Hence, companies attempt to gain competitive advantage
through quality control, producing efficient and cost effective designs, fostering good
relationships with clients and through the performance of their employees. This study focuses
on employee performance more specifically on how leadership styles impact upon it. An
extensive literature review revealed that leadership styles do impact upon employee
performance. It went on to identify job satisfaction as an influencing factor as well. There has
been very little research concluded on the leadership styles employed by South Africans and
almost none pertaining to South Africa’s consultant civil engineering industry. The aim of
this study is to bridge that gap by determining the impact of leadership styles on employee
performance at different levels of the profession. The target population for this empirical
study was any civil engineering technician, technologist and engineer (candidate and
professional) in the consulting industry. However, the number of people operating in this
industry is unknown. As a result, the Consulting Engineers South Africa’s Young
Professionals Forum (CESA YPF) was contacted and permission was gained for a
questionnaire to be sent out to their Durban members. Therefore, a population frame of 181
was established and the sample size used was 132 for a 95% confidence level and 5% margin
of error. The primary data collected was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
The empirical findings of this study proved that job satisfaction, a manager’s leadership style
and their attitude towards their subordinates collectively influence the performance of their
subordinates. The findings went on to elaborate that industry predominantly uses the
transformational leadership style although employees believe that the transactional leadership
style would assist them to achieve the desired performance level. In terms of job satisfaction,
employees state that advancement opportunities is the biggest influence on their job
satisfaction. The recommendations on which leadership style is best suited to reach
performance goals have been provided for. The identified limitations of this study can be
used as a foundation for further research in this field.
Description
Master of Business Administration. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville 2015.
Keywords
Leadership., Executive ability., Management., Civil engineering--Employees--Performance., Employees--Rating of., Theses--Business administration., Leadership styles., Employee performance.