The relationships among leadership styles, communication skills, and employee satisfaction: A study on equal employment opportunity in leadership

This study attempted to analyze the relationships among leadership styles, communication skills, and employee satisfaction. This study also examined the potential of women in leadership to support the practice of equal employment opportunities from gender side in organization. Data were collected from 200 selfadministered survey using questionnaires completed by employees at private Islamic universities in Semarang city, Indonesia. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that leadership styles and communication skills have a significant effect on employee satisfaction. However, based on employees’ perceptions, this study revealed no significant difference between leadership styles and communication skills of male and female leaders. Corresponding author: Udin Email address for corresponding author: udin_labuan@yahoo.com First submission received: 7th November 2017 Revised submission received: 22nd January 2018 Accepted: 5th March 2018 Introduction There are many expert opinions on the importance of communication in leadership. According to Holladay and Coombs (1993), leadership is a behavior carried out by communication, in which communication clarifies perceptions of a leader's charisma. This is clarified by Hall & Lord’s idea (1995), saying that the leader message conveys affective and cognitive strategies. When the leader effectively communicates his/her vision, he/she is more likely to gain the employees’ trust, which eventually affects communicating satisfaction between the leader and the followers (Madlock, 2008). Shaw (2005) stressed that in order to be perceived as competent communicators, leaders must share and respond to information on time, pay attention to others' points of view, communicate clearly and concisely to all levels of organization, and use all existing communication channels and various communicative resources such as language, gestures, and sounds. Communication skills also play an important role in influencing attitudes, such as employees’ satisfaction. It is not only about satisfaction in terms of communication with leaders, but also satisfaction with their jobs. Effective leadership should not only be seen from how far the leaders’ organizational unit succeeds in accomplishing the task of achieving their goals. Equally important is the process of leadership itself which then affects the employees’ perception on the leadership styles of their leaders. Employees perceive their leaders’ behavior, mainly based on two categories (i.e., related to the purpose of the tasks and related to interpersonal relationships). Employees are most satisfied when they perceive their direct leaders run both behaviors (Madlock, 2008). Judged from the leadership styles, female leaders run their task-oriented leadership without ignoring good relationship with their employees, as the conclusion which can be drawn from the article of Psychological Bulletin Vol. 129 No. 3 reviewed in Sinar Harapan Daily, on the advantages of female leaders. Numerous studies show that men and women respond to aspects of social relations differently (Eagly, 2007; Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011). Compared to men, women are more prominent in Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 1 October 2018 www.jbrmr. com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 139 the communal dimension, which is personal-oriented relationships and cares for the well-being of others (Eagly, 2009; Girdauskiene & Eyvazzade, 2015). Nevertheless, Eagly’s study showed no gender differences in terms of orientation dimensions in the assignment and assertive behavior such as ambitious, dominating, and competitive (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003) on men and women in leadership roles. However, the fact shows that there is still a lot of differentiating positions for different genders. Women often gain a lower position than male counterparts do, and they do not get equal opportunities in career development (Hastuti, 2005). Although more than half of Indonesia's population is women, their underdevelopment conditions may illustrate injustice and inequalities between men and women (Soemartoyo, 2002). In organizational scope, the opportunity for female employees to occupy managerial positions or to become a structural leader in an organizational unit is relatively lower than male employees do, despite the technical skills required. Surely, the things which will be studied in this study are more on the organizational subjective and objective obstacles, regardless of cultural and social problems. Literature Review Leadership Style Most researchers evaluate the effectiveness of leadership based on the consequences of leaders’ actions for their followers and other components within the organization. The most widely used measurement is how far the organizational unit of leaders succeeds in accomplishing tasks of achieving its goals, both objectively and subjectively. The selection of appropriate criteria also depends on the purpose and the values made by the person conducting the evaluation, while everyone has different values (Yukl, 2009). Michigan Leadership Study proposed effective leadership behaviors which was different from those previous studies. Employees view their supervisors’ behavior mainly based on two categories, one of which related to task purposes and the other related to interpersonal relationships. 1. Task-oriented behavior Effective managers use their time and efforts to concentrate on task or job-oriented functions different from their employees, such as planning and coordinating their employees’ activities, helping their employees to set high but realistic performance goals. 2. Relationship-oriented behavior For effective managers, task-oriented behavior does not mean sacrificing attention to human relationships. The leaders’ behaviors supporting this idea, among others are, showing trust and credibility, acting friendly and caring, seeking to understand the employees’ issues, showing appreciation of the employees’ ideas, and giving recognition to their contributions and achievements. In large organizations, the effectiveness of managers depends on the strength of their influence on the leaders and colleagues and their employees. That means, influencing is the essence of leadership. Various leadership functions can be run by different people who give influence on what groups do, how to do it, and how group members relate to one another. This interactive process, of course, involves many people influencing each other. The problem is not just who uses the influence, but also the kind of influence used and what the outcomes are. There are conflicting points of view, in which the definition of leadership is limited using influence resulting in high commitment from employees regardless of discontent or unwillingness to obey the leadership. Another contradictory view is that one who uses control over rewards and punishments for manipulating or forcing followers is not really "leading" them and unethical because it is an abuse of power. Thus, the first view can eliminate some of the influencing processes which are important to understand why a manager is effective or not in certain situations. The same kind of influence can give different results depending on the nature of the situation, and the same leadership outcomes can be achieved by different influencing methods. Communication Good communication in organization has a variety of important roles. First, communication is the key to efforts to coordinate activities within the organization. Second, communication plays a role to share information in putting forward facts, data, instructions, direction between units within the organization. Third, communication is essential for developing friendships and building trust and acceptance of the message receivers. In this case, their role deals with building social relationships within the organization. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 1 October 2018 www.jbrmr. com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 140 What people say and how to say it can have an impact on others. Therefore, in order to create a pleasant interpersonal atmosphere in the workplace, the organization members should pay attention to the communication factors. Eventually, the role which is much more important, especially for a leader as a communicator, is the role of communication in decision-making. Every individual has differences in his/her communication styles, which is not only influenced by his/her personal communication styles, but also by gender and cross-cultural differences. It is important to understand that all these styles can be learned and applied. Each style has its strengths and weaknesses, there is no single style that works best among others. Generally, individuals tend to use one style. Effective communication begins by recognizing one-self’s communication style and then that of others. Therefore, when someone meets and interacts with others, it is better to try to understand and then, as much as possible, to adjust the other person's style. Men and women, one another, are often misconstrued because they use different ways of communicating. It is the difference that makes them address the problem differently. Men tend to be good speakers, emphasizing and strengthening their status when speaking, unlike women do. While women focus on creating positive social relationships, tending to listen to others, and being more emotional. It would be wise for a manager or leader to appreciate and accept the differences. Getting a better understanding that everyone has a different way of speaking in terms of putting forward meanings, it is more likely to gain benefits from a variety of potential employees with different communication styles. Communication within groups or organizations has 4 main functions (Halim