Employee’s Preference Toward Leadership Style of Selected Companies in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

Leadership style was a challenge in management. Companies relied more on the leaders managing them. Likewise, it matters also to the working behavior of the employee who adopted the leadership style in the organization. The employee preference was attributed to Theory X and Theory Y of McGregor which was associated with Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Style. In these propositions, the study was determined to understand the employee’s preference toward the leadership style of selected companies in the Kingdom of Bahrain. A descriptive method was employed with the aid of the adopted questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used with 128 respondents to determine their preferences for leadership style. The hypotheses were tested using Chi-Square. Evidence showed a significant relationship between age and leadership style, and the null hypothesis was rejected. The more mature the employees were, the more they became aware of the preferred leadership styles. However, there was no evidence to show a significant relationship between employees’ preference toward leadership style, therefore the null hypothesis was accepted. The working behavior of the employees did not conform to the preference of the leadership style.  As such, management considered different management theories for the employees to become more productive. Management assisted the employees to cultivate more and/or develop their knowledge and skills. As purported in the literature that it was a lifelong reinvention, it was a lifelong learner.