Impact of Autocratic Leadership Styles on Employee Engagement of Non-Managerial Employees of Public Sector Offices in Kurunegala District, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Public sector organizations play a big role in Sri Lankan economy by providing significant amount of job opportunities. Public sector organizations always being criticized by the public because of public sector employees are not properly engage to their duties. The leadership styles of the heads of the institutions also have a direct impact on this issue. Therefore, purpose of this study was to assess the impact of autocratic leadership style on employee engagement of non-managerial employees of public sector offices in Kurunegala district. This study is carried out as a quantitative explanatory research work. Further, simple random sampling technique was used to select the sample. This is a cross sectional research and standard questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Questionnaires are distributed among 214 of non-managerial employees who are currently working in selected two Divisional secretariat offices in Kuliyapitiya town area. To analyze received questionnaires data, SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) was used. To interpret data analyzed and to obtain the result graphical charts, descriptive statistical techniques such as mean, mode, standard deviation and histograms, correlation and coefficient, simple regression analysis and residual analysis were used. To test the relationship between variables Pearson correlation technique analysis was used. Simple regression analysis was used to identify the degree of the impact of the independent variable on dependent variable. And it was found to be that there is a significant moderate negative relationship (-0.505) between autocratic leadership style and employee engagement. The present study would provide the direction to HR policy makers, employees, supervisors and to future researchers.