The Impact of the Leadership of the Head of Department on Administrative Staff’s Performance in Malaysian Premier Education University

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the leadership style of the head in department through the three types of leadership styles practiced which were transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership on the performance of administrative staff in one of the premier education universities in Malaysia. In addition, this study also sought to identify which leadership style of the head in department was a more dominant predictor on the performance of the administrative staff when the leadership styles (transformational, transactional and laissez-faire) were analyzed simultaneously. The quantitative approach was utilized in this study. The sample survey method was carried out involving 234 administrative staff as the respondents of the study. The sample was selected by using the simple random sampling technique and the data was collected using questionnaires. The data analysis was conducted using the Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) involving descriptive analysis (frequency and percentage). Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) version 7 software was used to perform multi-level analysis as the nature of the study data involved various levels of individual data nested (groups) in the organization. The analysis showed that transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership of the head in department was a positive significant with the in-role and extra-role performance of the administrative staff when analyzed separately. However, when the transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership of the head in department were analyzed simultaneously, they clearly showed that all these three leadership styles did not influence the in-role performance of the administrative staff. Interestingly in this study, only transformational leadership of the head of department proved a dominant influence on the extra-role performance of administrative staff compared to transactional and laissez-faire leadership. The findings of this study provided empirical evidence that although transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership of head of department could improve the in-role and extra-role performance of the administrative staff, this study proved that