Leadership Styles and Job Satisfaction in Lira District Local Government

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between leadership styles and job satisfaction among employees in Lira District Local Government. Specifically, the study explored the leadership styles practiced in Lira District Local Government, established the level of job satisfaction among the employees of Lira District Local Government and examined the relationship between the leadership styles exhibited by the leadership institutions and job satisfaction in Lira District Local Government. The study used cross sectional design to collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data from a respondent category of council; the chairpersons, the Resident District Commissioner and chief administrative officer who constituted 92 employees of Lira District local government of salary category U4-U2. Simple random sampling, purposive sampling and stratified sampling techniques were used to select 92 study units for investigation purposes. Questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect data while descriptive statistics were used to measure leadership styles and job satisfaction. Correlation coefficient was used to test the relationship between job satisfaction and leadership styles. The findings indicated that democratic leadership style (mean=3.855, SD=0.403) was the most practiced leadership style while laisez fairre style (mean=2.581, SD=0.554) was the least practiced in Lira District Local Government. The study found that job satisfaction among employees was above average, which was confirmed by the overall mean of job satisfaction of (mean=3.513, SD= 0.786), which indicated the level of satisfaction. The study found that job satisfaction is positively and significantly correlated with autocratic leadership style (r=0.554, p< 0.05), democratic leadership style (r=0.639, p<0.05) and transformational leadership style (r=0.474, p< 0.05) while the correlation between laissez fairre leadership style and job performance indicated a positive significant relationship (r=0.069, p> 0.05). the study concluded that the application of autocratic, democratic and transformational leadership style leads to job. The study therefore, recommends that leaders and management of lira district local government should promote and embrace the use of democratic and transformational leadership style in their leadership since it has a significant relationship with job satisfaction