Influence of Leadership Styles on Employee Job Satisfaction: A Case Study of Firms Listed In the Nairobi Securities Exchange

A Dissertation Report Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration (DBAThe study sought to examine the influence of leadership styles on employee job satisfaction; emphasis was on transformational, transactional and values based leadership styles. There were five aspects of employee job satisfaction namely; absenteeism, staff turnover, grievance handling, encouraged to make suggestions and morale, manager demographics and work environment within companies listed on the Nairobi Securities exchange were reviewed. The study adopted the following research questions: Does transformational leadership style influence employee job satisfaction? Does transactional leadership style influence employee job satisfaction? Does values based leadership style influence employee job satisfaction? Do the demographics of the leaders moderate the influence of leadership style on employee job satisfaction? and does the work environment moderate employee job satisfaction? The study used positivist philosophical research framework and descriptive research design. The target population comprised of 479,516 employees drawn from 62 companies listed in the NSE. A random sample of 400 employees was selected for the study with a total of 212 employees participating in the survey translating to a response rate of 53%. Primary data was collected using questionnaires that included a five point Likert scale items. Reliability tests were conducted using Cronbach alpha and the results were greater than 0.7 implying that the constructs of study variables were all reliable. The data was computed using a statistical computer programme. The study applied descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics were used to profile the study respondents and variables. Factor analysis was used through principal component analysis and varimax rotation method to generate factor scores for each construct. To test the type and strength of relationships amongst the study variables, correlation analysis was done. Testing of the hypotheses was done using multiple and hierarchical regression. Hierarchical regression was used to test the moderating effect of work environment on leadership styles and employee job satisfaction. The final outcome of the study is that transformational, transactional and value based leadership style positively influence employee job satisfaction. Further work environment was found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between leadership styles and employee job satisfaction. The study recommends that companies lay emphasizes on building the skills of their management team by ensuring they are trained and retrained on leadership skills that enhance transformational, transactional and values based leadership styles in order to improve employee job satisfaction. The study suggest future research on demographic factors of the managers like age, gender and management level, organizational culture and structure, younger workforce , gender perspective and finally on values based leadership in the government sector