Assessing Leadership Styles to Determine Their Impact on Employees Sensitivity

The original thesis was titled 'Assessing Leadership Styles to Determine Their Impact on Employees Sensitivity.' According to the topic, the thesis intended to find out how various styles of leadership impacted on employee's sensitivity. The sensitivity areas that were of interest were employees' culture and gender. The chosen leadership styles were autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire.

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Based on the said topic, the independent variables were the three leadership styles while the dependent variables were the employee's gender and culture. It means that the study would find out how, for example, the autocratic style of leadership affected the employees' age. Importantly, impact in this context implied the significance. As such, the study would determine whether the autocratic leadership, for example, was of any importance to the different cultures of the employees.

It became apparent that it would be challenging to classify different cultures in the workplace. There was no certainty that at least say five employees out of the fifty would be of the same culture. It was possible that the researcher would find one unique culture whose representation among the 150 sample size could not be repeated. Therefore, the culture was dropped as an element of employees' sensitivity and replaced with age.

The choice of age and gender was informed by the idea that individuals could be grouped in different age-groups and these groupings could be an accurate and adequate representation of the entire population. The same concepts apply to gender since the 150 chosen sample comprises of either male or female and this is an accurate representation of the whole community. The independent variables were maintained as the three different styles of leadership while the dependent variables were changed to age and gender.

The study's research questions were as follows:

1. What are the impacts of autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire styles of leadership on the employees' gender?
2. What are the impacts of autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire leadership styles on employees' age?
3. Which is the most applicable style of leadership for a group of employees from different sexes?
4. Which is the most applicable style of leadership for a group of employees from diverse ages?

Note that the questionnaires were meant for the employees and not the employer. The survey was divided into three sections. The employees would answer the questions that would establish the style of leadership that was exhibited by their immediate supervisor. They were also required to indicate their age and gender on the questionnaire. Next, they were required to answer questions that would reveal whether the leadership style was of any significance on age and later gender. As part of the analysis, it was anticipated that the following would be made manifest:

A questionnaire will be evaluated to determine the employee's perception of the style of leadership to which they have been subjected. Let us assume that one employee aged 30 identified the autocratic leadership style.

This same employee answered questions concerning this autocratic leader's style effect on age. According to the responses gathered, the employee indicates that the autocratic leader scores highly in the questions on age meaning that that style significantly impacts on age.

Assuming that the employee is male. He answers the next section and this time scores poorly on gender. It means that the autocratic style, according to this employee, does not favor male employees.

The questionnaires would be sorted according to the scores on the leadership styles. Let us assume a batch which identified autocratic leadership style in their leader. In this batch, male and female respondents will be separated. Data on the section on age will be collected. The scores for the male respondents will be recorded. The analysis will determine whether a significant number of male employees indicated that the autocratic leadership style was befitting to their gender.

In the same batch of that identified autocratic leadership, questionnaires would be grouped according to the employees' age groups. The section on age would be evaluated to count the scores in favor of authoritarian leadership and those against it. An analysis would determine whether those in favor were more significant than those against it. A conclusion would then be made.

Current Thesis

One significant change in the present thesis is the replacement of employees' sensitivity with age and gender so that the topic reads 'Assessing leadership styles to determine their impact on employees' age and gender.' According to this topic, the research questions should read as follows because we are maintaining the independent variables as the three leadership styles and the dependent variables as age and gender.

1. What are the impacts of autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire styles of leadership on the employees' gender?
2. What are the impacts of autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire leadership styles on employees' age?
3. Which is the most applicable style of leadership for a group of employees from different sexes?
4. Which is the most applicable style of leadership for a group of employees from diverse ages?

The questionnaire is still meant for the employees because the leadership styles affect them. Notably, the sections 2 and 3 of the survey were deleted so that only the part that required the employees to identify the style of leadership that their employer exhibited remained.

Changes Proposed by the Professor

That the topic reads 'The influence of age and gender on the leadership styles'

The questionnaire should have one section only.

The research questions read as follows:

• What is the impact of employees' gender on autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire styles of leadership?
• What is the impact of employees' age on autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire leadership styles?
• Which is the most appropriate style of leadership for a group of employees of different sexes?
• Which is the most appropriate style of leadership for a group of employees from diverse ages?

Questions Accompanying these Changes

The uniqueness of the study is in question because Kotur and Anbazhagan have already conducted research titled: The Influence of Age and Gender on the Leadership Styles.

In Kotur's study, the leadership in question was that of the employees and not the leaders. The employees assessed their leadership styles and data was collected based on their gender and age. In this case, it is the employees who are rating their leaders. Therefore, the first section of the questionnaire only helps to identify the style of leadership exhibited by the employer. It is, therefore, not clear where data on how this leadership style affects a particular age group or gender of the employees.

Implications of these Changes

If the topic is changed to 'The influence of age and gender on the leadership styles' it will be necessary that the paper is written freshly after choosing whether the employees or their leaders depict the leadership styles. Issues such as the classification of variables will have to be addressed. Note that a similar topic exists hence the need to clarify whether it is to proceed with this.

The Sage questionnaire will then be replicated without modification.

Professor's Concern

According to the Professor's message, he believes that there is no impact of leadership style on age and gender. The truth is that there is. For example, one the characteristics of the Millenials/ Generation Y is that they are can multi-task. Therefore, they perform great in cases where they are given weekly or daily targets so that they are not easily distracted. It may also mean that they will need intense supervision for them to do their work. Therefore, the autocratic leadership style may positively impact this age group. The original study would have captured these details in the data analysis section.