Literature Review: Conceptualising Employee Turnover And Job Satisfaction
Conceptualising Employee Turnover
The leadership styles play an important role in the organization and have the significant impact on the employee performance. The present study attempts to explore the transformational Vs situational leadership style and the aspect of creativity and innovation for organizational growth. This study then seeks the correlation between the influences of the chosen leaders on the creative problem-solving approach in an organization. The study concludes with some suggestions for the practical implementation of the leadership style.
Importance of creativity in organizational context:
Creativity is considered as one of the core business strengths as it improves the overall problem solving approach. The contemporary organizations are operating in a diversified business environment, which needs the discovery of innovative challenge mitigating solutions to meet future sustainability. Silvia, Martin, & Nusbaum (2009) stated that creativity can provide cost-effective business solutions and disruptive innovation to make the branding even stronger. All in all, creativity provides competitive advantage and a sustainable future to a business. Therefore, it is essential to encourage creativity to explore new ideas and meeting overall organizational effectiveness.
Literature review on creativity:
Different scholars have provided varied opinion about the role of creativity in building a growth organization. In this regard, Runco & Acar (2012) stated that creativity brings divergent thinking, which innovate unproven or untested approaches. Sometimes the leaders either follow vision driven or knowledge-driven divergent thinking process. As a whole, creativity is considered as a tool to generate new idea to achieve higher degree of success. On the other hand, Alves, Marques, Saur & Marques (2007) argued that creative discipline is the most effective element is the creative thinking which can help in making a high performing organization. Making creativity a habit and setting up creative leadership roles are found to be the driving forces behind the success of a creative organization. For instance, Steve Jobs was visionary leader who created path of disruptive innovation, which has enforced the team to make tangible ideas as a part of disruptive innovation. Thus, the creative discipline is the most effective parameter to bring growth potential in the organizations.
Contrary to the opinion of Alves, Marques, Saur & Marques (2007), Sung & Choi (2012) stated that only leadership skills and vision cannot be successful parameters for creativity, rather, knowledge management can bring creativity by improving the efficacy of out of the box thinking within the workforce. Thus, it can be stated that different thinking and approaches are needed to make a creative organization, which can be achieved by enhancing the knowledge sharing practices within the workforce.
The conceptualization:
Although a wider range of approaches has been discussed to conceptualize the creativity, in the present study, the concept was found in line with the views of Alves, Marques, Saur & Marques (2007), as it is focused on the core concept that is creative discipline and its impact on the overall organizational growth and sustainability.
Role of transformational and situational leader:
Transformational leaders’ role is to establish an intellectual simulation with the creativity. In the words of Liu, Siu & Shi (2009), transformational leaders’ idealized influence through charismatic behavior is positively associated with the individual creativity of the organization. In addition, the role of the transformational leader is to provide inspirational vision and cultivating a climate where the followers are encouraged in going beyond the traditional concept and bringing disruptive innovations. Thus, the leaders need to incorporate a few traits of transformational leader to bring innovation and sustainability in the future. On the contrary, Walumbwa, Avolio & Zhu (2008) argued that unlike transformational leadership, the situational leaders involve significant interaction in the innovation process which makes the follower personally capable to fulfill own and organizational growth.
Conceptualising Job Satisfaction
Literature review:
The role of transformational leadership in the organization has been approached differently by past scholars. As per the view of Zhu et al. (2009), transformational leaders promote the followers to be creative by assuming the future trends, challenges and innovating new pathways considering the past resolution approaches conducted by the firm. However, Walumbwa, Avolio & Zhu (2008) also criticized that the dependency on transformational leaders might affect the innovation process in the absence of the leader, which can be mitigated by employing ‘Situational leadership’ styles. A situational leader engages the subordinate during the transformation process and help to build self-confidence.
However, as per the opinion of Herold, Fedor, Caldwell & Liu (2008), effective change management process and mitigating the resistance to change is another trait of transformational leadership which is found effective in the context of organizational development. Steve Jobs’ leadership and emotional intelligence can be considered as a significant example of the positivity of transformational leadership.
During the change process, the leader executed emotional intelligence to direct the employees going on the same path to meet organizational vision and mission. Encouraging the followers to think ‘Out-of-the-Box’ is one of the significant traits of the transformational leadership (Chen, 2009).
On contrary, Wright & Pandey (2009) identifies that knowledge management is a crucial parameter to support innovation and creativity within the firm. At the same time, trust and openness, risk acceptance and diversity tolerance become a significantly complex job for the leaders and the innovation becomes more challenging. On the other hand, ‘Situational leadership’ trait involves change in the leadership behavior as per the changing demand, which creates diversity in the overall operation and brings creativity in a flexible way. However, the contribution of transformational leadership attributes can be valued more, as the leaders create a supportive organizational climate to foster knowledge sharing activity and creativity across all hierarchical levels (Noruzy, Dalfard, Azhdari, Nazari-Shirkouhi & Rezazadeh, 2012). Most importantly, Birasnav, Albufalasa & Bader (2013) indicated that the leaders also execute supportive and participative style to encourage the followers bringing innovation and creativity.
The example of Bill Gates can be nurtured in this context. The CEO considered that transformation & learning is correlated with each other and learning is a lifelong process. Due to the charisma and convincing capabilities, the leader became successful to stimulate creativity and turning the focus into the reality. Thus, it can be inferred that transformational leaders execute a combination of contemporary and traditional styles, which create a dynamic way to achieve a shared vision, innovation and organizational effectiveness.
Conceptualization:
Despite having different concepts of transformation leadership and its contribution towards creativity, in the present study, the concept was approached in line with the view of Wright & Pandey (2009). The followers’ dependency might lead to the failure of creativity in the absence of a leader, a potential knowledge management approach can foster inner confidence and the locus of control would be shifted towards the follower’s end. Therefore, a continuous change process and creativity can be obtained.
Transformational leaders bring disruptive innovation in the field of operations and hence, directly impact on the creativity aspects of the business. These types of leaders are more of concept centric and attempt to implement the new strategies and techniques into the existing sets of standard operating procedures and process manuals (García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, 2012). Situational leaders are, on the other hand, see the opportunities in the situations that may apparently be construed to be the non-favorable for the business. Therefore, this kind of leadership traits also calls for creativity and adopt the emerging trends in the corporate operations (Gumusluo?lu & Ilsev, 2009). Finally, it may hence, be concluded that both types of leadership traits significantly influence the creativity in the business context and contribute substantially towards a sustainable value creation (Eisenbeiß & Boerner, 2011).
The Relationship between Employee Turnover and Job Satisfaction
From the discussion above it can be deduced that to facilitate the employees’ innovative contribution, transformational leadership is instrumental. Hence, organizations that emphasize the creativity must employ managerial training programs to guide them in transformational leadership approach. The journey of transformational leadership must begin with the managers learning ways to effectively motivate and intellectually stimulate the followers. This, in turn, would increase the creativity index of individual team members. In addition, situational leadership traits would help the managers applying creative approach to stand out against difficult situation in a diversified way.
However, it has also been seen in the past that as a result of transformational leadership, the employees tend to increasingly depend upon the leaders. From the perspective of normative ethics, this leadership style poses a challenge in the personal development of the followers thereby hampering the virtue of self-determination. It can negatively impact in the overall possible level of achievement of employees. In this regard, the psychological empowerment of the employee is very important to improve the employee readiness and willingness, which can be done by employing traits of situational leadership. Through this act, the employees feel much more accountable for their actions and can connect with the vision of the leader. Therefore, transformational leaders must not only focus on the employee engagement for the overall creativity of the team but also use some traits of situational leadership behavior to empower employees, to reflect the positive selves for maximum achievement.
Conclusion:
Different leadership styles indeed have a positive impact on the creative problem solving and innovation of an organization. However, the leader must also focus on the knowledge management in organizations to set the foundation of creativity for next-generation employees. It can significantly eradicate the negative aspect of employee dependency on the leader.
References:
Alves, J., Marques, M. J., Saur, I., & Marques, P. (2007). Creativity and Innovation through Multidisciplinary and Multisectoral Cooperation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 16(1), 27-34. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00417.x
Birasnav, M., Albufalasa, M., & Bader, Y. (2013). The role of transformational leadership and knowledge management processes on predicting product and process innovation: An empirical study developed in Kingdom of Bahrain. Tékhne, 11(2), 64-75. doi:10.1016/j.tekhne.2013.08.001
Chen, C. (2009). Strategic human resource practices and innovation performance: the mediating role of knowledge management capacity. Strategic Direction, 25(6). doi:10.1108/sd.2009.05625fad.009
Eisenbeiß, S. A., & Boerner, S. (2011). A Double-edged Sword: Transformational Leadership and Individual Creativity. British Journal of Management, 24(1), 54-68. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00786.x
García-Morales, V. J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M. M., & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L. (2012). Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through organizational learning and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 65(7), 1040-1050. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.03.005
Gumusluo?lu, L., & Ilsev, A. (2009). Transformational Leadership and Organizational Innovation: The Roles of Internal and External Support for Innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 26(3), 264-277. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5885.2009.00657.x
Herold, D. M., Fedor, D. B., Caldwell, S., & Liu, Y. (2008). The effects of transformational and change leadership on employees’ commitment to a change: A multilevel study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(2), 346-357. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.93.2.346
Liu, J., Siu, O., & Shi, K. (2009). Transformational Leadership and Employee Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Trust in the Leader and Self-Efficacy. Applied Psychology, 59(3), 454-479. doi:10.1111/j.1464-0597.2009.00407.x
Noruzy, A., Dalfard, V. M., Azhdari, B., Nazari-Shirkouhi, S., & Rezazadeh, A. (2012). Relations between transformational leadership, organizational learning, knowledge management, organizational innovation, and organizational performance: an empirical investigation of manufacturing firms. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 64(5-8), 1073-1085. doi:10.1007/s00170-012-4038-y
Runco, M. A., & Acar, S. (2012). Divergent Thinking as an Indicator of Creative Potential. Creativity Research Journal, 24(1), 66-75. doi:10.1080/10400419.2012.652929
Silvia, P. J., Martin, C., & Nusbaum, E. C. (2009). A snapshot of creativity: Evaluating a quick and simple method for assessing divergent thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 4(2), 79-85. doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2009.06.005
Sung, S. Y., & Choi, J. N. (2012). Effects of team knowledge management on the creativity and financial performance of organizational teams. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 118(1), 4-13. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.01.001
Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., & Zhu, W. (2008). How transformational leadership weaves its influence on individual job performance: the role of identification and efficacy beliefs. Personnel Psychology, 61(4), 793-825. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2008.00131.x
Wright, B. E., & Pandey, S. K. (2009). Transformational Leadership in the Public Sector: Does Structure Matter? Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 20(1), 75-89. doi:10.1093/jopart/mup003
Zhu, W., Avolio, B. J., & Walumbwa, F. O. (2009). Moderating Role of Follower Characteristics With Transformational Leadership and Follower Work Engagement. Group & Organization Management, 34(5), 590-619. doi:10.1177/1059601108331242