Transformational leadership, occupational self efficacy, and career success of managers

Abstract

Individuals spend a great deal of their lives focused on a chosen occupation, and finds self-worth through career development. With career progression employees develop a sense of their career satisfaction. Occupational Self Efficacy (OSE) reflects the conviction or the confidence of a person's ability to fulfill his or her job related behaviour at a perfectly acceptable level to the employer. During their careers employees have to play leadership roles at work. Transformational leadership improves followers' commitment by influencing their needs, values, and self-esteem. Empirical evidences suggest that improved levels of performance, effort, and satisfaction, can be expected from subordinates, when managers adopt transformational leadership patterns. Study was conducted amongst one hundred and twenty two (122) managers who were employed in the banking sector in Sri Lanka. They were selected based on multi-stage (seniority in the hierarchy, gender, department-wise etc.) stratified random sampling. Major objectives of this study were to analyze the impact of Transformational leadership style, and OSE along with Socio-demographic factors, and Career, Job and Organizational experience, to the Career satisfaction of managers. Schyns and Von Collani's scale was used to measure the OSE of managers. Multifactor leadership questionnaire was used to measure the Transformational leadership style of managers. SPSS software was used for parametric and non-parametric statistical analyses. A positive relationship was inferred between the Transformational leadership style and Career satisfaction of employees. Impact of socio-demographic factors, career exposure, and OSE of managers to their Career satisfaction was assessed. Limitations of the study and future research areas have also been discussed.