Occupational stress as a moderator between perceived leadership styles and organizational commitment of employees in christian organizations

Abstract

The present study sought to find the relationship between the three relevant leadership styles found in Christian Organizations, namely Charismatic, Servant, and Transformational Leadership Styles, and Organizational Commitment. Furthermore, the study aimed to examine the moderating influence of Occupational Stress in these relationships. It was hypothesized that there is a significant relationship between the leadership styles of the leaders to the level of organizational commitment of the employees in Christian organizations, and such relationship is moderated by the employees' occupational stress. Survey questionnaires (Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, Servant Leadership Questionnaire, Charismatic Leadership Scale, and Occupational Stress Inventory - Revised Edition) were administered and collected from the108 employees, working in Christian Organization A, B, and C. Census was used in order to meet the target 100 respondents since the number of employees working in each Christian organization was relatively small. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations were computed and presented using SPSS. Furthermore, Multiple Linear Regression Analyses were used to identify moderation influence of Occupational Stress between the three leadership styles and organizational commitment. The survey was followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews with the three selected employees from each Christian organization. The interview sessions aim to seek their perception of the leadership styles of their leaders and to probe or explain those results in more depth. The purpose of the qualitative follow-up data is to better understand the quantitative results Based on the findings, there is enough evidence to suggest that the three types of leadership styles, with Servant leadership being the most dominant style, were significantly correlated to the overall organizational commitment among the respondents, and such relationship was indeed moderated by one of the dimensions of occupational stress, namely the Personal Resource Stress.