Relationship among leadership style, organizational culture and ...

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Relationship among leadership style, organizational culture and employee commitment in university libraries

Leadership style in university libraries

Muhammad Rafiq Awan

Received 9 June 2009 Revised 10 August 2009 Accepted 15 November 2009

The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan, and

253

Khalid Mahmood Department of Library and Information Science, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore leadership style, organizational culture and job commitment in university libraries of Pakistan and the relationships among them. Design/methodology/approach – A structured questionnaire was developed and self administered to 115 professional librarians. Hypotheses were tested through t-test, Pearson chi-square and ANOVA. Findings – The results show that the library professionals were not very sensitive about any relationship among these three variables at their workplace. A majority of the professionals perceived that their chief librarians had an autocratic style of leadership and libraries tend to adopt an achievement and bureaucratic culture. Most of the library professionals seemed to be highly committed with their organizations. It means that they favored result-oriented culture. Research limitations – The research was limited to university libraries in Pakistan’s province of Punjab and federal capital Islamabad. Originality/value – The study is useful to understand leadership style, organizational culture and job commitment in university libraries. Keywords Leadership, Organizational culture, Job satisfaction, University libraries, Pakistan Paper type Research paper

Introduction Leadership has always been a controversial issue among researchers and philosophers. Hundreds of researches have been administered and thousands of books and articles have been published on this topic. Burns (1978) stated that “leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth”. People are imperative to organizational life and they put their efforts in a coordinated way for certain outputs. When people are working together for certain accomplishments, it is natural to form groups. Each group member is affecting the activities of others in one-way or the other. Leadership role ultimately develops within the group formally or informally. Within formal groups having structured interaction and coordination, it is the fundamental role of leader to organize the activities, to motivate the group, to assign the task and finally achieve the targets.

Library Management Vol. 31 No. 4/5, 2010 pp. 253-266 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0143-5124 DOI 10.1108/01435121011046326

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According to Chamers, leadership is a process of social influence through which one person is able to enlist the aid of others in reaching a goal. A number of activities are included in the leadership role, and it is illuminating to look at these activities in relation to the organizational functions of internal maintenance and external adaptability. Regardless of contradiction among the concepts of leadership it is however, integral for human groups to have a leadership role amongst them. Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said, “if there were three in a trip, they must appoint a leader from among them” (Reported by Abu Dawud). The gauge of any human group performance can only be set by the performance of leaders. “In human affairs, the distance between the leaders and the average is a constant. If the leadership performance is high the performance of the group will go up” (Drucker, 1996). Literature review Concept of leadership Leadership has always been the subject of human society. Historians, philosophers, researchers, and too many, studied leadership (Bass, 1990a, b). A wide range of literature is available on the topic including historical writings like Epics of Gilgamesh, perhaps the oldest book found from Ancient Sumerian civilization. It is the story of King Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BC ). The story revolves around a great leader (King) having imaginary powers: Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all. He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden, He brought information of (the time) before the Flood.

Niccolo` Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513) is a classical and historical book on political system and leadership for attaining political power. The book teaches that how a prince can get advantage by behaving like a fox and lion (Scott, 2004). The prince like a fox should be clever and cunning but like a lion should be powerful and frightening. In the strategy (known as “Machiavellianism”) he advises that a prince should have the qualities of cunningness, deceitfulness, mercilessness, and ruthlessness at the same time to prolong his power. Trait theories on leadership started in the twentieth century and formal theories on leadership were given by sociologists, experts in human behavior and psychologists. The researches from 1920s to 1960s focused on the personality of leader and tried to find some traits as the basis of successful leadership (Adair, 1984). Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) cultivated the theory of leadership for the first time for leading in the formal organizations. His basic idea was to increase output by using scientific parameters. Taylor’s scientific management philosophy revolves around the concept of the machine metaphor (Hoy and Hoy, 2006). This wisdom about management theories was solicitude with the name of Elton Mayo through his famous Hawthorn study after 1925. His thoughts defy the concept that humans are not feeling-less utilitarian machines for mere economic output. They have physical as well as psychological needs and social relationship at work place. Stephen Covey (Covey, 1989) is one of famous writers on personal success. His famous book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, published in 1989, becomes a management model which is equally applicable in business, social and personal life.

Behavioral theories of leadership, started after Second World War, opened new avenues about leadership concepts, which negate the personal traits of leadership. The American scientists gave the idea that human behavior could be scientifically explained and predicted like other things. The first study of its kind was done by University of Iowa by Kurt Lewin and his associates. The approach to leader behavior focused on identifying the best leadership styles. Research on the study of behavioral leadership was initiated at university of Iowa, which makes out democratic, autocratic and laissez-faire styles. Another famous study was done at University of Michigan, headed by Rensis Likert. Likert identified two styles of leadership, i.e. “job-centered” and “employee-centered.” There was a drawback in Likert’s study that it did not propose the preferred pattern of behavior for good leadership. In the 1950s, the University Personnel Research Board developed two-dimensional model of leadership behavior (Hughes et al., 2002). Leader behavior description questionnaire (LBDQ) comprised of 150 examples of definitive leader behaviors were identified by administering it between 2,000 leaders. They come to the conclusion that leader’s behavior can be described in two categories: (1) Initiation structure: degree to which leader considers tasks and directs followers for the achievement of goals. (2) Consideration: degree to which leader is empathetic to workers, care their feelings and develops mutual trust and harmony (Hellriegel, 2001). Blake and Mouton in 1985 at University of Texas proposed model of Managerial Grid by using Leadership Opinion Questionnaire (LOQ) to measure the behavior of leader and followers on scientific bases (Yukl, 2006). The scale used in this study was 1-9 setting on two criteria: concerns for people and production. The score was plotted on two-dimensional model. The managerial grid’s five leadership styles were impoverished, country club, produce or perish, middle-of-the road, and team. The shortcomings of behavioral theories lay claim to call for some more comprehensive approach to leadership (Bass and Stogdill, 1990). Vecchio (1995) indicates that “researchers realized that the behavioral approaches did not address the contextual issues of leadership.” Bass and Stogdill (1990) state “situational theorists suggested that leadership is all a matter of situational demands, that is, situational factors determine who will emerge as leader”. Blanchard situational model recognizes the growth levels of the follower along with the achievement. The leader assesses the level of competence and commitment keeping the situation and growth pattern of employees. Effective leaders always move to and fro between various styles according to situation and development of followers. The development stages of followers and styles of leaders change accordingly. Four development stages of followers are: (1) D1: “Low competence low commitment” means poor skills – needs training and guidance. (2) D2: “Low competence, high commitment” needs incentives and training. (3) D3: “High competence, low commitment” needs motivation. (4) D4: “High competence, high commitment” means follower is experienced and motivated. Four styles of leadership are, directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating.

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Hoy and Miskel (2001) and Lussier and Achua (2001) stated that Max Weber is perhaps the first man who gave the idea of charismatic leadership in 1947. Basically the term “charisma” was used to explain a form of influence based on followers’ perceptions that is gifted with exceptional characteristics. By using the exceptional abilities charismatic leaders ignite followers’ to produce unexpected results, which are not routine output. Thus, charisma is defined as the ability to influence major modifications in the behaviors and thinking styles of organizational members and building commitment for the goal achievements. The concept of charismatic leadership is also criticized by many researchers but many of them have supported it. However, the charismatic leadership is more apparent in the situation of crises. Judge and Piccolo were the pioneers to introduce the idea of transactional, transformational and laissez-faire leadership in 1978. This concept was however further developed by Bass and Avolio. The fundamental concept is that there exists a complex exchange between follower and leader. The major topics of transformational leadership studies are charisma or idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. “Three dimensions of transactional leadership like, contingent reward, management by exception active and management by exception passive were taken as foundations” ( Judge and Piccolo, 1978). Emotional intelligence is the capability to adaptively perceive, comprehend control, and exploit emotions in the self and others. The concept is based on the view that leaders should have accurate judgment and perceive the situation of followers in a total perspective while expecting to perform any action. Leadership styles The role of leadership is largely determined by the culture of the organization. It has been argued that organization’s “beliefs, values and assumptions are of critical importance to the overall style of leadership that they adopt” (Bunmi, 2007). Leadership style is the behavior pattern used by leader to resolve the organizational issues. There are several different leadership styles that can be identified in various leaders. Every style has its own set of good and not-so-good characteristics. The leadership styles we are considering in this study are autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire. “The autocratic leader dominates team-members, using unilateralism to achieve a singular objective. This approach to leadership generally results in passive resistance from team-members and requires continual pressure and direction from the leader in order to get things done”. Autocrat leaders maintain servant-master relationships with followers (Adair, 1984). Starrat (2001) states that democratic leader consults his teem for making any decision however he acts as a central controlling unit of the team. The democratic leader facilitates the team for initiating any task and gives them liberty to achieve it at their own free will through mutual understanding. A good democratic leader always promotes participation and delegates keeping the fact in mind that he will be ultimately responsible for all outcomes. The laissez-faire leader does not interfere in the affairs of followers very slightly showing little control on the group. Participation of leader is very low in the activities of group members. In laissez-faire leadership style team struggles with negligible direction or motivation (Bittel, 1989).

Leadership in university libraries of Pakistan Personnel management in Pakistan is too academic in orientation that it loses dynamism, organized action taking and human relation element. Recruitment methods are so indecent that these cannot evaluate the leader’s potential and leadership capability. There is difference in service class and management class. Political posting of heads of departments is also a major factor uprooting the true leadership. There is no delegation of power, which may help heads of department to make decisions by virtue of authority (Rehman, 1969). University libraries are the subsidiary bodies of universities being affected by the management styles of parent organization. Sajjad-ur-Rehman (1990) says that curriculum of Library and Information Science must teach, planning, evaluation, personnel management and scientific management. Haq (1991) stresses that university librarians must adopt western styles of management. Hanif (1986), by mentioning the problems of university libraries, says that there is lack of leadership in university libraries in Pakistan. Organizational culture varies from organization to organization, formal entities operating in the same industry may exhibit similar values because of alike environmental factors (Jennifer and Jehn, 1994). Mcdonald and Jeffrey (1992) suggested four categories of culture based on fit with environment, strategies and values. The difference lies on the fact, the extent to which external environment requires flexibility or stability and the extent to which the strategic focus is internal or external. The four quadrants represents cultural types: (1) adaptability culture; (2) achievement culture; (3) clan culture; (4) bureaucratic culture. Libraries must exhibit the relationship between means and ends, facts and values. Today’s severe problem for university libraries is low staff, salary package and a high turn over of library staff. People went out of country for the sake of good salaries and status (Khan, 1979). Librarians should be positioned themselves in an aggressive manner and should be visible in front line (Khan, 1977). There are many factors which affect the commitment level of staff in university libraries. The number of library staff in university libraries in not sufficient, which creates work pressure. The promotion of library staff is not rapid. Most of the university libraries are without permanent chief librarian or the grade of chief librarian less than 19-20. University librarians are normally having dual reporting system, like Vice Chancellor and Chairman Library Committee (Ali, 1990). Temporary or acting in-charge will not feel commitment with the library. Social acceptance of library staff is discriminated as of the other staff in universities. Library staff does not enjoy same social status as the teaching staff (Khan and Kazim, 1987). A study by Jaswal (1980) concluded that most librarians are not satisfied with their current jobs. Hanif (1986) says that highly trained and qualified staff left the country due to the lack of national commitment. Also the appreciation of library staff from library administrator is poor. Sabzwari (1986) says that due to the improper respect and status most of the qualified persons migrate from the country or switch to the reputable institutes.


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Objectives of the study The objectives of study are to: (1) Assess the leadership styles of chief librarians in universities. (2) Assess organizational culture in university libraries. (3) Assess job commitment of university librarians. (4) Find out relationship among leadership style, organizational culture and employee commitment in university libraries. Research design A survey was conducted by using a questionnaire of four parts. The first part was comprised of demographic information of respondents. In the second part T-P Leadership Questionnaire was used which contained of 35 items. It was developed by Sergiovanni et al. and has been used in many leadership style studies (Sophonthummapharn, 2005). The items are derived from the Leadership Behavior Description (LBDQ). The original LBDQ consists of 100 statements; however shorter forms of instrument have been developed by reducing the items in latter studies. Instrument categorizes the leadership style into two types. The variable (leadership style) in the research was based on task oriented (autocratic) leadership style and people oriented (laissez-faire) leadership style. In many exploratory and descriptive studies this instrument was successfully used to derive leadership styles (Brooks, 1982; Deluga, 2006). It encompassed 35 questions to find the leadership style of chief librarians as per the perception of their professional subordinates. Likert scale was used, having five scale options according to the description of T-P questionnaire: (1) Always. (2) Often. (3) Seldom. (4) Very rare. (5) Never. Library professionals were asked to rate the leadership style items as their degree of agreement. . Phase I. Each respondent was reviewed to allocate the scores of “Task oriented” (autocratic) and “People oriented” (laissez-faire) style. The allocation of score was done through the formula (methodology) described in T-P leadership questionnaire. . Phase II. According to T-P Leadership Questionnaire the score were allotted on two scaled lines connected on the base by equal angles showing the score of 100 percent divided equally. . Phase III. Cumulative score of leadership style of university chief librarians was calculated through SPSS. The organizational culture of libraries was explored through organizational culture questionnaire (ECQ) and part four consisted of quantification of the level of employee

commitment with their organizations (libraries/universities). The questions were translated in Urdu so that respondents could easily comprehend the questions. The population included qualified librarians (with at least master degree in library science) from all universities and degree awarding institutions in Punjab and Islamabad. A list of 44 such organizations was prepared after consulting the web site of the Higher Education Commission (HEC). The sample was delimited to 30 institutions where at least three librarians, including chief librarian, were working. The total number of professionals in the sample was 197. For data collection, all institutions were personally visited by the researcher or his trained assistants. Two surveyors were involved for data collection one of them is serving in a research organization namely Institute of Research Promotion (IRP) and second was a Master in Business Administration (MBA) and both have been involved in some researches. The respondents who filled the questionnaire were 115. Of the rest of the persons 37 refused to participate in the study while 45 were on leave on the day of visit. The usable questionnaires (n ¼ 115) were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).


Results Leadership style of chief librarians A total 35 statements were provided to the respondents for the evaluation of leadership style of their chief librarian. A five-point Likert scale was used to see perceptions of the respondents about the chief librarians. It contained options like always, often, seldom, rare and never. Cumulative score of leadership style of university chief librarians was calculated through SPSS. Table I shows the ratio of dominant leadership styles. It was discovered that 93 percent of chief librarians fall in the category of autocratic leadership style and only 7 percent fall in the category of laissez-faire leadership style. A very high score in favor of autocratic style shows that chief librarians in university libraries are task oriented. Autocratic leadership style was the highly dominant leadership style of chief librarians in the university libraries. A very high score of (93 percent) respondents shows that chief librarians in university libraries are task oriented. The reasons might be: . Flat organizational structure where chief librarian has to be involved in all types of library operations and also participate in other university meetings etc. The researchers reconfirm the phenomenon by asking some questions on telephone from chief librarians and some respondents. For example it was asked about the frequency of library staff meetings. Most of the people replied that it was very rare that chief librarian had called upon a meeting. The agenda of most of the meetings was just to pass on some orders and instruction instead of sharing and participation of staff.

Leadership style Autocratic Laissez-faire

Frequency

Percent

107 8

93 7

Table I. Perceived leadership style of chief librarians

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Most of the staff in university libraries in junior staff, chief librarians may consider that it would be useless to involve them in decision making and strategic issues. In the bureaucratic system of university management, advancing through filing system is the tradition in the university culture. The orientation of chief librarians is from public sector, which is dominantly tasked oriented in Pakistan.

Organizational culture in libraries Fourteen sets, of four statements each, were provided with a four-point ranking scale of preferences (1 – Would not prefer at all, 2 – Would prefer on occasion, 4 – Would prefer often, 8 – Would prefer most of all). Respondents were asked to rank the preferences keeping the culture of their organization in mind. Score of preferences (1, 2, 4, 8) was taken from questions and placed in four columns. The score of each column was added to find the dominant culture of organizations by dividing it to total frequency of respondents. Higher number of respondents (44 percent) perceived that their organizations exhibited achievement culture, second category of respondents (23 percent) perceived that culture of their organizations was bureaucratic, 11 percent thought that their organizations displayed adaptability culture and 22 percent supposed that their organizations demonstrated clan culture (Table II). In the presence of authoritative leadership it is natural to prevail achievement culture and bureaucratic in the university libraries. “Libraries are often viewed through stereotypical lens that might suggest the idea of single dominant or strong culture” (Kaarst-Brown et al., 2004). The findings of the study confirmed the dominance of these two cultures. In total 44 percent libraries exhibit achievement culture while 23 percent respondents alleged about bureaucratic culture. However, the ratio of clan culture is 22 percent and lowest of the cultures is adaptability (11 percent). The findings show that dominant organizational culture is authoritative but the ratio of clan culture is almost equal to clan culture. It means that in the absence of participation with chief librarians, subordinate staff shares their feelings and issues with each other. Employee commitment in libraries To measure the employee commitment a section of the questionnaire consisted of 15 statements. The data were converted into four levels of commitment, i.e. less, moderate, high and very high. The results are shown in Table III. The results show that seven percent respondents felt that they were less committed with their organizations while

Type of organizational culture Table II. Perceived types of organizational culture in libraries

Achievement culture Bureaucratic culture Adaptability culture Clan culture Missing

Frequency

Percent

50 26 13 25 1

44 23 11 22 1

most of the respondents (92 percent) were very highly committed with their organizations. Only two percent respondents perceived that they were committed but not very high while none of the respondents showed moderate commitment with their current organizations. Relationship between leadership style and organizational culture In the present study, one of the null hypotheses was that “There is no relationship between leadership style and organizational culture”. After applying the cross tabulation between the two variables and chi-square test to find the significant relationship, the values found as: chi-square ¼ 4.55 and p ¼ 0:208, which is higher than 0.05. It states that there is no significant relationship between the expected and observed result. It means that leadership style and organizational culture has no relationship and null hypothesis is accepted (Table IV). In the studies of other sectors the situation is not same for example in a study of garments industry of Pakistan it was found that there is a significant relationship between leadership style and organizational culture (Adnan, 2008).


Relationship between leadership style and employee commitment An independent sample t-test was performed to see the relationship between employee commitment and two groups of leadership style. The results (Table V) reveal that the mean of autocratic leadership style is 3.69 and of laissez-faire leadership style is 3.54. The results found not to be statistically significant at alpha level 0.05 (t ¼ 0:760). This means that leadership style has no effect on the commitment of employees in

Level of commitment

Frequency

Percent

7 0 2 106

6 0 2 92

Less committed Moderately committed Highly committed Very highly committed

Leadership style Autocratic Laissez-faire

Achievement culture 47 3

Organizational culture Bureaucratic culture Adaptability culture 25 1

13 0

Clan culture Table IV. Cross tabulation of leadership style and organizational culture

21 4

Notes: Pearson chi-square ¼ 4.55, df ¼ 3, Sig. ¼ 0.208

Leadership style Autocratic Laissez-faire Notes: t ¼ 0.760, Sig. ¼ 0.890

Table III. Level of employee commitment

Mean

SD

3.69 3.54

0.55 0.55

Table V. Results of t-test regarding employee commitment by leadership style

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university libraries. It makes no difference on the commitment of library professionals that leadership style of their chief librarian is autocratic or laissez-faire. The analysis shows that the job commitment of the respondents remained unchanged with the change of leadership style. Relationship between organizational culture and employee commitment One of the research hypotheses of this study was to examine the difference of opinion between organizational culture and employee commitment as measured by Organizational Culture Questionnaire (OCQ) and Employee Commitment Questionnaire (ECQ) among the university librarians. One-way ANOVA test was used to see the significant relationship in different types of organizational culture and the level of commitment. Results (Table VI) show that there is a significant relationship among the organizational culture and employee commitment in the surveyed university libraries. The analysis reveals (F ¼ 2:789 and mean difference with achievement culture is 4, SD ¼ 0:58 with bureaucratic culture is 3.47, SD ¼ 0:50, with adaptability culture is 3.50, SD ¼ 0.57 and with clan culture is 3.83, SD ¼ 0:46) that change in organizational culture has a significant effect on the commitment of professionals. Once the results of ANOVA become significant, it necessitates the post hoc multiple comparison test to see the significant relationship between all possible pairs. For this purpose LSD procedure was used in the analysis. Table VII shows values of the test. The results show that the job commitment of professionals working in achievement culture is higher than those working in bureaucratic culture. Similarly the mean job commitment of those working in clan culture is higher than those of bureaucratic culture.

Type of organizational culture Table VI. ANOVA table for responses of different types of organizational culture on employee commitment

Achievement culture Bureaucratic culture Adaptability culture Clan culture

SD

3.80 3.47 3.50 3.83

0.58 0.50 0.57 0.46

Notes: F ¼ 2.789, Sig. ¼ 0.044

Type of organizational culture

Table VII. Post hoc multiple comparison analysis for different types of organizational culture and employee commitment

Mean

Achievement culture Bureaucratic culture Adaptability culture Clan culture Bureaucratic culture Adaptability culture Clan culture Adaptability culture Clan vulture Notes: * Significant at 0.05 level

Mean difference

Sig.

0.28 0.26 2 0.08

0.031 * 0.130 0.553

2 0.03 2 0.36

0.878 0.018 *

2 0.33

0.072

Discussion and conclusion Literature has established the facts that conceptual framework including factors of leadership style, organizational culture and employee commitment constitute links between one another. The study was administered in university libraries on the basis of standard models of leadership styles, organizational cultures and employee commitment. These items involve communication, facilitation and involvement through participation etc. The study was based on quantitative method for which standard questionnaires were used after Urdu translation so that the understanding of terminology would be made easy. The study brought to light the influence of leadership style, organizational culture and commitment of library professionals. The focus was to develop strategic concerns for appropriate leadership style, culture and how the level of commitment can be enhanced in university libraries. As far as academic world is concerned, the study adds to the repertoire of knowledge in the area of library management. The research was conducted with the curiosity to explore the leadership style, organizational culture and employee commitment of university libraries in Pakistan but the scarcity of literature in the area was a calamity. However, the available studies in the area of university librarianship helped in this regard. Much less is known about this phenomenon in academia of Pakistan especially, in the field of librarianship. So the researchers had to consult the relevant studies in corporate as well as public sector other than librarianship with the hope to contribute in the body of knowledge in the area of librarianship. Before drawing general conclusion about leadership style of university chief librarians some limitations to the study may be discussed. The concept examining leadership style of chief librarians was somewhat astonishing for library professionals and some of them felt reluctant to fill the questionnaire. A major concern for such studies might to explore the relationship of such variables with performance and productivity while no measure of performance could be inducted in case of libraries. In spite of some limitations of the study the over all results are satisfactory. As a conclusion we can state that the general leadership style is the same and the subordinates are contented with their tasks and they are motivated to work. This finding is surprising because the most of the previous researches prove the relationship between leadership styles, organizational cultures and employee commitment. In the studies by Burd (2003), Murray (1999), Lynch (2000), Faerman (1993), Hernon et al. (2003) it was concluded that leadership styles have relationship with the cultures and commitment. Library professionals have thrill to excel for tasks. It is a motivational factor for the library professionals. Maehr (1990) has studied relationship between organizational culture and motivation and concluded that culture shapes up the “psychological environment” in the organizations. It has been however seen through this study that library professionals favor their culture for learning development and professional growth. The other dominant culture explored in this study is bureaucratic in the university libraries. It is suggested in many studies of university libraries that organizational learning will not take place if library administrator will not develop a culture that supports transformation (Castiglione, 2006; Bell, 2005; Gieseck and McNeil, 1999; McConnel, 2004). Clan culture is the least found culture in university libraries. It is however considered by the library professionals that adaptability culture should be


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promoted in libraries and significant relationship is found in both achievement culture and adaptability culture especially the professionals in large university libraries are inclined toward this type of combination. The results of employee commitment were very interesting. It was explored through the study that library professionals are highly committed with their organizations. This commitment is like potential energy, which can only be effectively used by the library leaders by converting it into kinetic energy through leadership skills. This is the generation of commitment and the force of commitment can be utilized by creating “sense of identity, unity of purpose to the members of organization, and facilitating the generation of commitment and shaping the behavior by providing the guidance on what is expected” (Adeyoyn, 2006). There are many strategies, which can be beneficial for utilizing this potential, like training and development, reward system, recognition etc. Keeping in view the findings of this study it is recommended that training programs should be arranged for the development of leadership skills in library professionals. Especially, senior professionals must be sent for such training in corporate sector etc. Library schools and library associations can also play a pivotal role in this regard. Further research can be helpful to make betterment in the areas of leadership, culture and employee commitment in libraries. References Adair, J. (1984), The Skills of Leadership, Gower, Aldershot. Adeyoyn, S.O. (2006), “Managing the library’s corporate culture for organizational efficiency, productivity, and enhanced service”, Library Philosophy and Practice, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 53-64. Adnan, A. (2008), “Organizational climate and employee commitment: a study of Pakistani knitwear industry”, Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 124-33. Ali, Y. (1990), “University libraries in Pakistan: a profile”, PULLSA News, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 49-70. Bass, B.M. (1990a), “From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 19-31. Bass, B.M. (1990b), Handbook of Leadership, Free Press, New York, NY. Bass, B.M. and Stogdill, R.M. (1990), Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Literature, Freeman Press, New York, NY. Bell, S.J. (2005), “Submitt or resist: librarianship in the age of Google”, American Libraries, Vol. 36 No. 9, pp. 68-71. Bittel, L.R. (1989), The McGraw-Hill 36-hour Management Course, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Brooks, D. (1982), “An investigation of the leadership style of selected basketball coaches”, available at: www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/ 80/2e/02/20.pdf (accessed December 6, 2007). Bunmi, O. (2007), “Effects of leadership style on job related tension and psychological sense of community in work organizations: a case study of four organizations in Lagos State, Nigeria”, Bangladesh Journal of Sociology, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 45-73. Burd, B. (2003), “Work values of academic librarians: exploring the relationship between values, job satisfaction commitment and intent to leave”, available at: www.ala.org/ala/acrl/ acrlevents/burd.pdf (accessed December 6, 2007). Burns, J.M. (1978), Leadership, Harper & Row, New York, NY.

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McConnell, C. (2004), “Staff and leadership shortages: grow your own”, American Libraries, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 34-6. Mcdonald, P. and Jeffery, L. (1992), “Getting values from shared values”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 64-76. Maehr, M. (1990), The Psychological Environment of the School: A Focus for School Leadership, National Center for School Leadership, Illinois. Murray, R.A. (1999), “Job satisfaction of professional and paraprofessional library staff at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill”, master thesis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. Rehman, M.A. (1969), Administrative Reforms in Pakistan, Administrative Staff College, Lahore. Sabzwari, G.A. (1986), “University library standards for Pakistan: a proposal”, Pakistan Library Bulletin, Vol. 16 Nos 3-4, pp. 1-50. Sajjad-ur-Rehman (1990), “Revision of library science curriculum”, PULSAA News, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 127-42. Scott, A. (2004), “Machiavelli’s: The Prince”, available at: www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/ machiavelli.html Sophonthummapharn, K. (2005), “Leadership styles and e-commerce adoption: An analysis of Thai food exporters”, master’s dissertation, School of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology, available at: www.bth.se/fou/cuppsats.nsf/all/157c521b6f522189c1257023006 29878/$file/FinalThesis_Kittipong.pdf Starrat, R.J. (2001), “Democratic leadership theory in late modernity: an oxymoron or ironic possibility”, International Journal of Leadership in Education, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 333-52. Vecchio, R.P. (1995), Organizational Behavior, 3rd ed., Harcourt Brace & Company, Fort Worth, TX. Yukl, G.A. (2006), Leadership in Organizations, 6th ed., Prentice-Hall, New York, NY. Further reading Bartel, T.M.C. (2005), “Factors associated with attachment in international adoption”, doctoral dissertation, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, available at: http://krex.ksu.edu/ dspace/bitstream/2097/131/1/TeresaBartel2005.pdf Bass, B.M. (1985), Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations, Free Press, New York, NY. Sardhar, P.M. (n.d.), “Leadership styles”, available at: www.citehr.com/50222-leadership-styles. html Corresponding author Muhammad Rafiq Awan can be contacted at: [email protected]

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