Abstract:
e concept of leadership is a widely discussed phenomenon today at various forums.
Globalization and the boundary free business environment that exist today have led the way
to rigorous competition and difficulty in survival for every organization, whether large or
small scale, private or government, multinational or national. These changes and challenges
have brought about the need for new trends in leadership, which encompasses goal
orientation, employee motivation, development, with employee contentment. Among the
various styles of leadership that are being discussed and practiced, transformational
leadership has become an important leadership style due to its potential to accommodate the
complexities found in a technologically advanced, dynamic, and multinational work
environments of today. Although the idea of transformational leadership has gained access to
management discussions in the 80's with personalities such as Bass (1985) and Bums (1978),
it has become more valid today, especially in the context of multinational organizations. The
essence of transformational leadership is to build commitment on the part of followers to
achieve organizational objectives, empowering them to accomplish theirs with satisfaction.
This research endeavours to ascertain the leadership styles employed by two group leaders of
a multinational organization in Sri Lanka and to ascertain whether such leadership styles have
similarities to that of transformational leadership. In addition to these core objectives the
study also tries to determine the impact of such leadership styles on team contentment and
how the background of the leaders affects the leadership styles.
