The impact of leadership style on organizational citizenship behavior: does leaders' emotional intelligence play a moderating role?

Purpose The study investigates the effect of autocratic, democratic and transformational leadership styles on employees' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The study further examines the moderating role of leaders' emotional intelligence between leadership styles and OCB. Design/methodology/approach Questionnaires were used to collect data from 618 small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) employees in Ghana. For this study, both simple random and convenient sampling were adopted in selecting respondents. Regression was used to test the hypotheses in the research model using IBM-Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings The results show that democratic and transformational leadership styles both positively predicted the OCB of SME employees, although transformational leadership has a more significant influence. On the contrary, autocratic leadership style was found to have an insignificant relationship with OCB of SME employees when the interactive effect of the various leadership styles and emotional intelligence were introduced into the model. The results also show that whereas leaders' emotional intelligence positively moderate the relationship between autocratic leadership style and OCB, the relationships between democratic leadership style and OCB and between transformational leadership style and OCB are not significantly moderated by leaders' emotional intelligence. Research limitations/implications An examination of other prominent leadership styles (for example, the transactional leadership style and the laissez faire leadership style) could be key areas for future research as it is a potential limitation of this study. Similarly, the use of a Western leadership instrument could also be a potential limitation in the Ghanaian context, although these instruments and scales may be applicable. Future studies could also consider a longitudinal approach to give a more holistic picture of the effect of the leadership styles on OCB. Practical implications In general, the findings of the study support the idea that the autocratic leadership style affects SME employees' OCB both directly and indirectly through leaders' emotional intelligence. This study recommends that leaders of SMEs should focus on leadership styles that combine both result-oriented and people-centric behaviors to encourage SMEs' employees to engage in OCB. Originality/value This study provides firsthand information on the impact of autocratic leadership style, democratic leadership style and transformational leadership style on an employee's OCB from the Ghanaian SME perspective.