The Impact of different leadership styles on Employees’ Productivity in the telecom sector of Pakistan: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of various leadership styles, including autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transactional, and transformational, on the employees’ productivity in the telecom sector of Pakistan. The data was collected through a structured questionnaire on a random sampling basis. For the analysis, the study employed equation modelling using SmartPLS 4.8.8 for hypotheses testing. The findings report the positive impact of democratic, laissez-faire, and transformational leadership styles on employees’ productivity. The results suggested that in the telecom sector of Pakistan, the employees prefer flexible leadership styles for optimum productivity. However, in contrast, the study did not report any impact of autocratic and transactional leadership styles on employees' productivity. In the case of transactional leadership, the results are quite surprising that the incentive-based leadership style still does not prefer the telecom sector employees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The study offers several theoretical and practical implications for various stakeholders, such as academia, regulatory bodies, industrial practitioners, top telecom sector management and developing countries' regulatory bodies to improve their employees’ productivity.