Leadership Behaviors And Their Relationships With Organizational Situations At Universitas Terbuka (The Indonesian Open Learning University)

Harijati, Sri (1995) Leadership Behaviors And Their Relationships With Organizational Situations At Universitas Terbuka (The Indonesian Open Learning University). Masters thesis, University Of Victoria.

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Abstract

An effective leader is an enormously important factor in an organization. This is true because, when a leader exercises appropriate behaviors in a given organizational situation, the consequences will usually be an increase in staff satisfaction (Hoy & Miskel, 1991; Fleishman, 1973). Such feelings of satisfaction will contribute to staff productivity and commitment to the organization and will influence organizational goals (White & Bednar, 1991) Universitas Terbuka (UT), a distance education institution in Indonesia, is a relatively new, large, and bureaucratic organization. It has been suggested that role ambiguity and role conflict may exist in an organization with such characteristics (Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen,1980). According to Naylor et al. (1980), high levels of role ambiguity and role conflict are indicators of an organizational situation which is associated with low levels of staff satisfaction. Effective leadership behaviors at UT, therefore, must include those behaviors of leaders which allow subordinates to respond effectively to the levels of role ambiguity and role conflict at UT. The consequences of the leaders' effective responses may lead to increases in staff satisfaction. Universitas Terbuka is charged with the formidable mission of overcoming the current educational problems in Indonesia. Given this considerable task, UT leadership must make every effort to increase staff satisfaction. They must be cognizant of those behaviors which have been found to be most likely to contribute to staff satisfaction. Staff satisfaction is necessary for UT to accomplish its mission for educating the Indonesian population. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to investigate the most appropriate leadership behaviors at UT. Several research questions guided this investigation. In addressing these questions, a number of standardized English language questionnaires were employed. Several steps were taken in the process of translating the questionnaires into the Indonesian language. The results of the translation process indicated that the Indonesian language instruments were comparable to the English language instruments. There were 294 staff who responded to the questionnaires which were distributed to 400 UT staff at central and regional offices. Statistical analyses included descriptive,chi-squares, one-way analysis of variance, correlations,analysis of covariance, and t-tests. The results indicated that 37.3% of the staff perceived that their leaders show low initiation and low consideration, 12.9 % of the staff perceived that their leaders show low initiation and high consideration, 15.6 % of the staff perceived that their leaders show high initiation and low consideration, and 34.2 % of the staff perceived that their leaders show high initiation and high consideration. According to the respondents, it seemed that the majority of leaders at UT show either low initiation and low consideration behaviors, or high initiation and high consideration behaviors. However, there is no dominant type of leadership behavior at UT. The main results suggested that high initiation and high consideration leadership behaviors were the most appropriate leadership behavior for UT as this type of leadership behavior was related to high levels of work satisfaction and leadership satisfaction. In addition, high initiation and high consideration behaviors were associated with high levels of work satisfaction and leadership satisfaction which were effected by role ambiguity. High initiation and high consideration behaviors were associated with high levels of work satisfaction and leadership satisfaction which were effected by role conflict. Additional results indicated that administrative staff and academic staff had similar levels of role ambiguity, role conflict, work satisfaction, and leadership satisfaction. In addition, regional office staff had similar levels of role ambiguity, role conflict, and leadership satisfaction to central office staff. Interestingly, regional office staff had higher levels of work satisfaction than did central office staff. The results found in this study are discussed in terms of the implications of appropriate leadership behaviors in certain situations in an organization such as UT. Recommendations included leadership training both for present leaders and for those who aspire to leadership positions. Such training might assist UT in accomplishing its goals of providing better education to the Indonesian population. A replication study and a longitudinal study are recommended for further research.

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