Exploring the relationship between selected leadership styles and flourishing in a milling company

Abstract

Orientation: In today's demanding world of constant performance, organizations are pressured to grow to survive. A good quality product with a recognized brand or trademark and good service delivery is not executable without employees. Flourishing of employees, conceptualized as the emotional, psychological and social well-being of the individual, is important and can be influenced by leadership style. Research purpose: This study aimed to explore the relationship between selected leadership styles and flourishing of employees in a milling company and to identify the leadership style that promotes employee flourishing the best to enable the employer to promote that leadership style in an effort to improve the flourishing of the employees. Motivation for the study: The vision of the milling company is to have happy and passionate employees (flourishing employees). This study examined whether this company does have happy employees and what elements of flourishing must get attention to help the employees flourish more. Research design, approach and method: A quantitative research design with a convenience sample (n=88) was used. The target population was one milling company with 100 employees. Permission was given to conduct the survey on the premises of the company and there was an 88% response rate from the employees. The Multilevel Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and Flourishing At Work Scale (FAWS) were administered. Leadership styles were measured from a follower's perspective. Main findings: It was found that transactional leadership has the strongest relationship to flourishing, with transformational and transactional-transformational leadership following by a small margin. Employee well-being was found to have the most visible practical relationship with transformational leadership. Practical/managerial implications: The findings indicate that a combination of leadership styles (transactional, transformational and transactional-transformational) will be the most effective to help employees flourish. The findings reveal what elements of flourishing are not being met at present. This information can direct the leaders of the milling company to provide support to improve all the elements of flourishing. Contribution/value-add: This study adds value by pointing out what element of flourishing must be improved. Without all the elements of flourishing, total flourishing does not exist. Implementing the correct leadership style and improving the lacking elements of flourishing can create flourishing employees and would the vision and mission of the company be achieved. This study contributes to the literature by using the MQL and the FAWS together in the milling industry, interesting results were found.