Influences on leadership behaviour: a binomial logit model

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to review what influences leaders' behaviours and why leaders behave in certain ways and not in other ways. Using a range of job characteristics such as the different leadership styles utilised in conducting various tasks and the leaders' age and gender for example, and employing a binomial logit analysis on a survey data, this research focuses on a range of possible influences on leadership behaviours. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate the influences on leadership behaviour, a questionnaire was constructed with leadership behaviour, leadership style, job satisfaction and some demographic questions. The population for the study comprised employees from various sizes of UK companies from a wide range of industries. The questionnaire was administered mainly, but not only, to managers and leaders in the Key British Enterprises. Findings – The paper found that a number of the leadership style dimensions and other explanatory variables were significantly related with some of the individual leadership behaviour types. For example, intellectual stimulation was positively and significantly related to delegative leadership which is a characteristic of creative organisations that have confidence in the abilities of its workforce. However, it does not find a direct gender effect on leadership behaviour. Originality/value – Collecting data from over 400 managers from a wide range of industries in the UK and reviewing the relevant literature on influences on leadership behaviour, the study found among other things, that delegative leadership style is significantly related to all the four transformational leadership factors. Delegative leadership is therefore judged to be a very popular leadership style that many managers practice in their organisations while consultative and participative leadership styles remain the least favourite and directive leadership style lies in‐between in a scheme of widespread application within organisations.