The Effect of Leaders’ Adoption of Task-Oriented or Relationship-Oriented Leadership Style on Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), In the Organizations That Are Active In Service Sector: A Research on Tourism Agencies

Abstract

It is essential in all organizations to provide integration of human resources and the organization, in terms of organizational effectiveness. In organizations that are active in service sector, this integration is especially important because of the fact that the employees are in face-to-face relationship with the customers. In this sense, the extent of responsibility on managers/leaders, is really important. Managers/leaders in organizations can adopt a leadership style and behave as “Task (Work) Oriented” or “Employee (Relationship) Oriented”. The style that is adopted by the leader, has a considerable effect on their relationship with employees.

Leader-member Exchange Theory (LMX) is the leading theory that scrutinizes endogeneity and exogeneity. LMX, codes human resources as inner-group and outer-group in the context of leader-member exchange. The leadership styles that are adopted by the managers, have great impact on the exchange among leaders and subordinates. Thus, the subordinates perceive their situation either inner-group members or outer-group members.

The purpose of this study, is to find out the effect of the leadership style that is adopted by the managers on Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). In this context, a survey method is applied to the tourism agencies that are active in Yalova, Turkey. The survey consists Fiedler’s LPC (least preferred co-worker) measure, Leader-member Exchange measure and demographical questions. According to the results, there is no statistically significant effect of Task Oriented leadership style on Self Oriented dimension of LMX. On the other hand, it has been found that there is statistically significant effect of Relationship Oriented Leadership Style on Self Oriented dimension of LMX.