Paternalistic Leadership and Its Impact on Organizational Effectiveness

Paternalistic Leadership is an indigenous leadership style in Chinese enterprises. We surveyed 419 employees and supervisors in Chinese companies to examine the nature and the effect of paternalistic leadership. Results of the study indicated the following: first, paternalistic leadership relates not only to the characteristics of the departments, but also to the ownership and the size of the enterprises. All three dimensions of paternalistic leadership (including authoritarian, benevolent and moral leadership) had significant effects on human resource management effectiveness of the companies as measured by 5 aspects of the individual including resignation intention, job satisfaction, perceived work performance, work related stress and self-efficacy, with benevolent leadership and moral leadership having positive effects and authoritarian leadership having negative influences on human resource management effectiveness. All three dimensions of paternalistic leadership also had significant effects on organizational effectiveness as measured by organizational commitment, identification with the group and group effectiveness.