Leadership and employees reaction towards change: role of leaders' personal attributes and transformational leadership

Abstract

This research study has empirically examined the role of leadership in shaping employees' attitude towards an organizational change/reform in an educational sector organization i.e. Army Public Schools and Colleges System, Pakistan. Data was collected from 95 leaders (principals, wing-heads and coordinators) and 250 employees (teachers) through convenience sampling technique. Data was analyzed through Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). This study has found that leaders' and teachers' dispositional resistance to change were positively related to teachers' intentions to resist change and leaders' transformational behaviors had a negative impact on teachers' intentions to resist change. Furthermore, leaders' conservation values were positively related to teachers' resistance intentions whereas leaders' openness to change values were negatively associated with teachers' resistance intentions. However, transformational leadership did not moderate the relationship between teachers' dispositional resistance to change and teachers' resistance intentions.