Leadership Styles and Workplace Wellness Among Ghanaian SME Workers

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between leadership styles and the quality of work life (QWL) among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) workers in Ghana. A cross-sectional design was used with standardized questionnaires to collect data. Both the simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were adopted to select respondents. A total sample of 200 respondents was engaged. The research findings suggest a positive relationship between QWL and transformational leadership style (r =.63, p =.000) with ‘idealized influence’ a dimension of transformational leadership significantly correlating with QWL. Transactional leadership style also had a positive relationship with QWL (r =.53, p =.000) although moderate. This suggests that in a developing country setting like Ghana, more exchange (give and take) form of relationships enhance employee quality of work life which is contrary to what pertains in other jurisdictions. Furthermore, males and females did not differ significantly on their QWL. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.