Organisational context : a moderator of leadership style, leader emotional intelligence and trust in the leader

Trust is proposed as being a critical determinant of organisational success and stability and has been asserted as contributing to employee wellness (Shaw, 1997). Furthermore, trust has been related to a number of positive outcomes such as employee satisfaction, organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour (Gillespie & Mann, 2004). These findings have stimulated the exploration of how factors such as leadershipstyle and leader emotional intelligence are related to trust in the leader and whether or not organisational context is a moderator of these relationships. Quantitative data was collected from two hospitals in the Western Cape. The current study found that organisational context, in the form of the low- and high-velocity context, did to some extent moderate the relationship between leadership style, leader emotional intelligence and trust in the leader.Transformational leadership and leader emotional intelligence were found to have the strongest correlations with trust in the leader. Furthermore, leader emotional intelligence was found to be the greatest predictor of trust in the leader. In order to cultivate high levels of trust and obtain the aforementioned outcomes, nurse leaders should focus on developing a more transformational leadership style and higher levels of emotional intelligence.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Organisational Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Glass, Monique

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Schlechter, Anton

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5862

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/5862