TELLING SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT WITHIN NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS IN KENYA

Abstract

This paper addresses the influence of telling situational leadership style on employee commitment within NGOs in Kenya. Methodically, the study was guided by the positivism research philosophy. The study applied a descriptive correlational research design which was used to analyze data and provide responses to the research question and confirm or reject the correlation between two or more variables using data from the use of primary data collection. The major emphasis was on determining cause and effect relationships. The population of the study was 80,299 employees from 2,816 NGOs operating within Kenya. Stratified random sampling was used to select 383 respondents for the study having a response rate of 94.5%. Primary data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire which was designed based on the research objectives. Both descriptive and
inferential analysis were employed in the analysis. Regression analysis revealed that telling situational leadership style influenced employee commitment (β = .392, p=0.00) showing that a change of telling situational leadership style by a unit influenced employee commitment by 39.2%. From the empirical evidence and conclusion, this study recommends that NGOs should apply telling situational leadership style on programmes and situations cautiously to receive feedback from the employees for better commitment.
This is because telling situational leadership style hinders the creation of an organization’s culture for shared values and employees are less likely to adapt to the company’s or managerial values when they are not included in the decision-making processes.

Keywords: Telling situational leadership, Employee commitment, Hersey-Blanchard, NonGovernmental
Organizations