Problem Definition
As many organizations are facing high turnover and low levels of employee engagement, they are turning to Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals for assistance.
(Lockwood, 2007) This research paper investigates if a particular management style can influence or change employee retention or employee engagement. Examining this issue in greater detail will help HRD professionals determine if coaching towards a particular management style could increase organization effectiveness. Specifically, this paper studies the relationship between management style and employee engagement, and management style and employee retention rates.
Employee retention and employee engagement are significant issues facing today’s organizations due to the globalization of business, enhancements of technology and the overall change in the needs, wants and behaviors of a generationally diverse talent pool. The ability to retain an organization’s best talent is critical as turnover rates can be costly, especially when dealing with specialized talent or skills. (Lockwood, 2007) Research from Society for Human
Resource Management has shown that organizations with high levels of employee engagement are likely to yield better financial and workplace safety results, and foster a stronger environment of innovation and creativity. Employee engagement is defined as “the extent to which employees commit to something, how hard they work, and how long they stay as a result of that commitment.” (Corporate Leadership Council, 2004) Engaged employees are more likely to go above and beyond in their jobs, because they can understand how their job fits into the organization’s business goals, and they truly care about the results. (Lockwood, 2007)
“The number one factor that influences employee commitment is the manager-employee relationship.” (Lockwood, 2007) Management styles can differ greatly between organizations

and even between managers. Management style, as it relates to the manager-employee relationship, plays such a key role in employee retention that it is often described as the dealbreaker. (Lockwood, 2007) Managers and their leadership style can have a big impact on employee job satisfaction, commitment, and productivity. These factors are important to contributing to the organizational success of obtaining its' goals and objectives. (Rad et al., 2006)
Management styles?
Much of the empirical-related research that was reviewed did not specifically focus on the directional link between management style and employee engagement or management style and employee turnover. However, indirect research supports that focus on leadership styles, job satisfaction and organizational commitment influences engagement and turnover. Need transition. Can one management style yield higher retention rates and engagement scores than another management style? Can Human Resources (HR) and Organizational Development (OD) practitioners assist their organizations by modeling and training in one management style versus another to increase the ability to retain the best talent and have an engaged workforce? This research paper will address these issues and will aid HRD professionals in designing, measuring, and evaluating proactive workplace strategies that help attract and retain the best employees.
Review of the Literature
To further investigate how management styles are related to employee retention and engagement, six empirical articles were reviewed. Smith & Canger explored the Big Five personality model and the relationship between the personality of managers or supervisors and the aggregated attitude of their subordinates. Need to explain Big Five. Their research consisted of three Internet-based surveys that were distributed to employees for a US division of an

international human capital management organization. Smith & Canger claimed 686 employees completed at least one of the surveys; however, only data from 484 employees was used in the actual study. In addition, their findings did not report which respondents’ were employees or supervisors. Smith & Canger’s research focused on personality, job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and turnover intention. These surveys were used to measure whether a supervisor’s personality directly affects employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention. According to the authors, their study provides compelling evidence that supports the belief that supervisor personality plays a direct role in employee turnover and employee job satisfaction. In this study, employees had positive job-related attitudes when direct managers or supervisors scored higher in areas of emotional stability, extraversion and agreeableness. In addition, employees also displayed positive attitudes when their managers scored low on conscientiousness. One of the limitations from the study is the use of a subject group from only one organization. Corporate culture and environment could affect the sample study responses regardless of supervisor personality or employee attitudes. Need to confirm if we can make our own assumption.
Another article reviewed “
Role of Leadership in the Employee Withdrawal Process:
A Constructive Approach ”, authored by Gerald R. Ferris, examines the contributions of average and dyadic leadership style to explain the variance in employee turnover. Ferris explored the relationship of two factors, average leadership style (ALS) and leader-member exchange
(LMX), and employee turnover. Leader-member exchange is a 1-5 response format scale used by
Graen et al. to assess the quality of the supervisor-subordinate interaction. Average leadership style is the average of the LMX ratings of all subordinates reporting to a particular supervisor.
The average was then assigned to each group member as an ALS score.

The sample for this study consisted of 81 registered nurses and their supervisors in a
Midwestern hospital. The nurses in the sample were all female, with an average age of 34. A morning and evening shift were covered. One year after the initial questionnaire, 9 of the 68 staff nurses had voluntarily left the organization. Turnover in this study was only 13% compared to
42% in Graen et al.’s initial study.
This study had four primary measurements. Leader-member exchange and average leadership style were the same measurements used in the Graen et al. study. Employee attitudes and overall job satisfaction were measured using two versions of the job descriptive index scale.
The results indicated there was mixed support for the findings reported by Graen et al. in the initial study; however, both studies suggest that subordinates tended to leave less frequently when leader-member exchange scores were higher than the average. This study’s results do favor the results of Graen et al.’s study that leader-member exchange is a stronger predictor of turnover than average leadership style. Additional support for Graen et al.’s study concerning LMX and employee attitude predictors of turnover was provided. LMX was found to be superior in the prediction of turnover than employee attitudes.
There are several easily identifiable limitations of this study including the all-female sample, single occupation sample, and the Midwestern locality (identify our own limitations). A limitation pointed out by the researchers was that Graen et al. did not address the extent to which between-unit and within-unit correlations account for a particular total correlation, nor did Graen et al, address the difference between the two. A statistical test of the difference between such correlations was not conducted. The current researchers suggest that future research may want to examine this further, especially due to the results of this current study suggesting the LMX turnover relationship is due more to individual differences rather than work group differences.

The third article, “ A study of relationship between managers’ leadership style and employees ’ job satisfaction”, researchers Ali Mohammad Mosadegh Rad and Mohammad
Hossein Yarmohammadian explore the relationships between managers’ leadership styles and employees’ job satisfaction in an Iranian Hospital. The researchers infer that job satisfaction is critical to retaining and attracting good employees. The authors define job satisfaction as “an employees’ affective reaction to a job”. Satisfied employees have a tendency to be more productive, stay on the job longer, and are more innovative.
Rad and Yarmohammadian’s research investigates the relationship between managers’ leadership style and employees’ job satisfaction at Isfahan University Hospital in Iran. The results of the research allow for a better understanding of this relationship, which can aid further research, help with the strategies for recruitment, promotion, and employee training.
Rad and Yarmohammadian collected data through a distribution of two questionnaires among 950 employees selected at random and received an 86% response rate. Employees and managers received different questionnaires. The employees received a questionnaire related to their job satisfaction and the perception of their manager’s leadership style. Managers received a questionnaire related to their perceived leadership style and job satisfaction.
The findings from the research indicate that the dominant leadership style of the managers in the organization is participative. The percentage of participative leadership styles among the managers is 100% for middle and senior managers, and 94% percent for front line managers. There is also a significant correlation between leadership style and employee job satisfaction. Data from the employees’ questionnaires indicate less job satisfaction with salaries, benefits, work conditions, promotion and communication, and more job satisfaction with the nature of the job, co-workers and supervision type.

Even though the results show a positive correlation between job satisfaction and leadership style, it does not necessarily mean that participative leadership style yields better results. The authors indicate that each organization has their own unique culture, so managers would have to use their experience to gauge which type of management style would be best for their employees. One of the limitations of this research is that it was limited to an Iranian hospital; however, the researchers anticipate that their findings may be relevant to other organizations in different countries.
Researchers Agrusa and Lema studied the relationship between the perception of management styles and employee turnover in a Mississippi casino. To conduct their research, two separate questionnaires were sent to 251 employees in the Mississippi casino industry, including supervisors and employees. The purpose of this survey was to gather data on personal assessments of what supervisors felt were valuable management skills. Question topics included: levels of trust between supervisory and non-supervisory employees, types of incentives offered, amount of decision making, and thoughts on teamwork. The second questionnaire was specifically designed for non-management employees and gathered information on what they perceived to be effective management skills and whether or not their supervisors possessed these skills. The purpose of this survey was to understand what these employees felt were the most effective and supportive leadership behaviors.
The key results of Agrusa & Lema’s study indicated a significant difference in employee’s perceptions versus the perceptions of supervisors regarding management styles.
While both employees and supervisors agreed in a number of areas, supervisors perceived they excelled in the following areas: allowing employee input into decision making, establishing a relationship of trust between supervisors and employees, encouraging employee development,

communicating organizational changes, caring for employee's well-being, and providing clear expectations and regularly praising employees. The data from employees contradicted the supervisors’ perceptions. Limitations to this study included one casino surveyed. The authors felt that further study in other hospitality organizations would be needed to further support their hypothesis.
In another empirical article, Lawson Savery investigated the relationship between perceived style of leadership and organizational commitment. This study consisted of surveying
302 employees in the Western Australian State headquarters. The survey involved the respondents scoring 23 different organizational decision-making situations. As a result of
Savery’s study, the author categorized the respondents into three groups based on their responses: The autocratic group (54%) who indicated they perceived the leadership style they received was an autocratic style, the consultative group (33%), who perceived they were consulted with about organizational decisions, and the democratic group (13%) who perceived the most democracy in the organization. The study indicated that the democratic group is receiving a style of leadership that is closest to their ideal type. The group that experienced the leadership style closest to their ideal type was the democratic group. This group displayed higher levels of organizational commitment versus the respondents in the autocratic group, who had the lowest levels.
Respondents who perceived their leaders to have an autocratic leadership styles had the largest difference between their perceived and preferred style of leadership. The author suggests that the workforce prefers a democratic system as the democratic style leads to higher level or organizational commitment and job satisfaction. As with other studies, the limitations of this article included the sampling of only individuals in Australia.

The final study, Defining Respectful Leadership , was designed to look at leadership behavior and attitudes that contribute to a feeling of respect. The purpose of this study was to provide insights as to what respectful leadership is, offer a feasible measure for the same to be used in future organizational research, and to use this measure to investigate effects of respectful leadership on employees.
The researchers had four hypotheses; is there a relationship between respectful leadership and participants’ identification with their leader, their appraisal respect for their leader, their feeling of job satisfaction and their feeling of self-determination. To accomplish this
Quadquebeke and Eckloff recruited participants using diverse online portals through teasers such as text boxes, banners or short stories about the study. This study was conducted in Germany and included 426 employees. Participants were surveyed about their encounters with respectful leadership, and were asked to name and describe critical incidents in which they were respected by their leader. Standardized statements were formulated for each category so the statements always had the leader as the subject who displays attitudes or behaviors towards the participants.
The number of statements were reduced to 149 in 19 categories of respectful leadership.
Two sub studies were conducted to reduce the data to a more feasible item list that could be used in organizational research. The second set of studies explored the relationship between perceived respectful leadership and subordinates’ vertical followership, contextual followership and general job satisfaction. Vertical followership is defined as subordinates are voluntarily open to their leaders’ influence, and contextual followership means subordinates perceive a sense of self-determination in their doing. The researchers believe that once a subordinate encounters respectful leadership in organizational practice, employees will achieve high levels of job satisfaction. To measure job satisfaction in the second study, the participants were surveyed

using Kunin’s 7 point satisfaction scale ranging from very unhappy to very happy. Respectful leadership was measured by having participants rate all 149 standardized statements in terms of how important the behavior is to them using a Likert scale.
The result of the second studies was a list of 12 items that created a respectful leadership scale. This list was reduced from the original 149 items by looking at only items that scored at least a 6 or higher on the importance scale. As a next step, the researchers examined the psychometric qualities of the 12 items to ensure that respectful leadership qualities were sound when applied to actual leaders. The researchers determined that respectful leadership, as assessed by the 12 items, is positively related to the surveyed dependent variables. The results also found that perceived respectful leadership was also related to participants’ job satisfaction.
Critical Synthesis
 add in the management styles from the different articles.
 There is a fine line between management styles and personality styles. There is mixed studies/data that can influence the outcome one way or another depending on how they define management style.
 A hit rate table, creating high and low groups in the same manner as Graen et al., was examined further with respect to turnover and the LMX and ALS measures. The results of this analysis in relation to turnover do not strongly support the Leader-member exchange. (Kelly's article)