Transformational Leadership in Higher Education Institutions and

Employee Satisfaction Interventions

Laily Fardillah

1,2

, Budi Prasetyo

1,2

and Rizca Yunike Putri

Master of Human Resource Developiment Postgraduate School Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Faculty of Social and Political Science, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Faculty of Social and Political Science, The University of Wijaya Kusuma Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: Employee Empowerment, Employee Satisfaction Interventions, Higher Education, Ttransformational

Leadership.

Abstract: Transformational leadership is one form of leadership that is widely believed to have colored a new

paradigm of thinking about the essence of leadership in the era of globalization. The motivation is given

aims to gain support and trust from employees. Employee empowerment by leaders with transformational

style is an important component in developing the potential of employee performance improvement. The

purpose of this research is the magnitude of the direct influence of the transformational leadership style on

the commitment of employees of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Airlangga University. The

analysis technique used is path analysis using SPSS 13.0. The results of this data processing show that the

direct influence of the transformational leadership style on organizational commitment is weaker than the

indirect effect of transformational leadership on organizational commitment through job satisfaction

variables. Thus, it can be concluded that the influence of transformational leadership style to organizational

commitment through job satisfaction.

1 INTRODUCTION

Transformational leadership is leadership capable of

bringing about change in every individual involved

or for the organization to achieve higher

performance. Four types of transformational

behavior (Bass 1985) are charisma, intellectual

stimulation, individual attention, and inspiration.

Burns (1978) describes transformational

leadership is a process whereby leaders and

employees together mutually improve and develop

morality and motivation. Bass (1985) describes

transformational leadership as leadership that

enables followers of feelings of trust, admiration,

loyalty, and respect for leaders, and the term

motivation to do more than the employee expects.

Results that match the results keep employees

further from the outcome of the task, persuading

employees to put more importance on the interests

of the team or organization of interest and according

to their higher needs.

In transformational leadership, leaders build

subordinate consciousness will follow up and get the

task carried out by conveying his vision to his

subordinates so that they work with his personal

interests and encourage changes towards the

interests of the organization. Go on growing trust,

pride, loyalty, commitment and respect to the boss.

Job satisfaction is the individual's emotional

response to his or her job or place of work derives

from the experience of his work. According Luthans

(2007: 141) job satisfaction is a sense of comfort or

positive emotional state resulting from the

assessment of work or work experience. Employee

job satisfaction can be given to several factors.

Among them by looking at the important factors that

encourage employee job satisfaction. The aspect of

employee job satisfaction according to Luthans

(2006: 243) consists of the work itself,

payroll/salary, promotion opportunities, supervision,

working conditions according to Robbins (2003: 85)

consists of what is fair (cooperation), work that

mentally challenges (mentally challenging work),

supportive colleagues, and supporting working

conditions. Important factors that drive job

satisfaction can also affect how committed

employees are to the company.

Fardillah, L., Prasetyo, B. and Yunike Putri, R.

Transformational Leadership in Higher Education Institutions and Employee Satisfaction Interventions.

DOI: 10.5220/0007550307210724

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 721-724

ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3

721

Employees who have all the needs are met will

achieve job satisfaction and have a commitment to

the company. The high commitment of employees

can influence the development of the company. The

commitment will make employees support all

activities of the company and make employees feel

the company has a company. The existence of a high

commitment to the company, employees will be

more productive in work.

Researchers see a change in leadership style

taking place in FISIP Unair as an interesting point

that can be used as a case for the relationship of

leadership strategy to intervention in this regard. As

one of the faculties of Airlangga University which

have changed its status to State Owned Legal Entity

(BHMN) since 2006, of course, in FISIP Unair also

experience style. BHMN status request is. Lifestyle

at the university level and faculty level in Unair

environment.

2 RESEARCH METHOD

To know the influence of transformational

leadership style to job satisfaction and

organizational commitment this research using

quantitative approach. In a quantitative approach,

the researcher uses the rationalization process of a

phenomenon that occurs and measures the variable

(variable indicator) that is being investigated and

finally the quantitative approach tries to make a

generalized conclusion. Variables used in this study

there are two types, namely independent variables,

and dependent variables. The independent variable is

the transformational leadership style (X). The

intervening variable is employee satisfaction (Z).

And the dependent variable is the organizational

commitment (Y).

Measurement of organizational commitment

variables based on respondents' answers or ratings

on statements in questionnaires whose value is

determined on a Likert scale, with the following

explanation: (1) Value 1 represents a strongly

disagreeable answer; (2) The 2nd value represents

the disapproving answer; (3) The value 3 represents

the answer quite agree; (4) Value 4 represents the

agreed answer; (5) The value of 5 represents a

strongly agreeable answer.

Primary data collection was done by

questionnaire and direct observation. Secondary data

in this research include the general description of the

research subject, organizational structure of research

subject as well as explanation of authority and job

title.

The number of population in the study were 50

respondents covering employees of Faculty of Social

and Political Sciences Airlangga University with

details of 56 employees and 4 head sub-section

consisting of Head of Administration Academic,

Head of Student Affairs, Head of Finance and Head

of Human Resources.

3 RELATION OF

TRANSFORMATIONAL

LEADERSHIP (X) ON WORK

SATISFACTION (Z)

The results showed that the transformational

leadership style has a significant effect on job

satisfaction on the employees of the Faculty of

Social and Political Sciences Airlangga University.

It is based on the test results with the value of

standard regression coefficient (beta) 0.784 with a

significance value of 0.000. These results illustrate

that a leader must be able to appreciate and accept

individual differences in terms of individual interest

needs, for example some employees want more

encouragement, employees want more leadership

attention to employees for example: making sure

that the employee is able to complete the task, faced

by employees and encouraging employees to be

more enthusiastic employees in completing the task

and leaders always provide direction in completing

the task. The leadership also raises the followers'

awareness of the issues and influences the followers

to view the issues as new perspectives.

Transformational leadership style strives to

create a conducive climate for the development of

innovation and creativity of employees, resulting in

the emergence of a strong sense of ownership and

will make employees happy in working and doing

all the duty to perform tasks without feeling forced

to create job satisfaction.

4 RELATION OF WORK

SATISFACTION (Z) TO

ORGANIZATIONAL

COMMITMENT (Y)

The results showed that job satisfaction has a

significant effect on organizational commitment at

the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences

Airlangga University. This is based on test results

with the value of standard regression coefficient

ICPS 2018 - 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School

722

(beta) 0.708 with a significance value of 0.000.

These results show the higher the employee job

satisfaction of the Faculty of Social and Political

Sciences of the University, the higher the

commitment of employees. Job satisfaction has a

positive and significant impact on organizational

commitment. Organizational commitment shows a

power of a person in identifying one's desire,

involvement, and membership in an organization.

The emergence of organizational commitment will

lead to a strong sense of ownership of the

organization.

5 RELATION OF

TRANSFORMATIONAL

LEADERSHIP (X) TO

ORGANIZATIONAL

COMMITMENT (Y)

The results showed that the transformational

leadership style significantly affected the

organizational commitment to the employees of the

Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Airlangga

University. It is based on the test results with a

significance value of 0.683 below the significance

value of 0.000. The results are supported by the

existing conditions in the Faculty of Social and

Political Sciences Airlangga University can be seen

from the characteristics and leadership behavior that

inspire employees. The leader's charisma explains as

a result of employee perceptions about the quality of

leader behavior. Charismatic leaders are able to

inspire employees about the form of loyalty and

obedience beyond their own interests, if an

employee feels admirable towards his leader, then

the leader will be easily accepted by employees in

various aspects of the work in the organization, a

number of leadership researchers stated that the

sense of awe is a positive response of employees to

leadership transformational.

This means an effective leader influences his

followers to have greater optimism, confidence, and

commitment to the organization's goals and mission.

Thus, the behavioral ways of leaders in directing

their followers will have an effect on employees'

organizational commitment, thus supporting

previous research on the influence of leadership

style on organizational commitment (Desianty,

2005).

Leaders with a transformational style encourage

more employees to come up with new ideas and

creative solutions to the problems at hand. This

theory is reinforced by Bass (1998) who states

"transformational leaders will always try to build

and develop the potential of individuals to make

them into independent followers". Leaders with

transformational leadership styles tend to have

inspirational traits that motivate employees in work,

but influence does not only come from charismatic

leaders. With a leadership style, transformational

leadership applied then the attachment arises

between leaders and employees so as to facilitate

can increase the commitment of organization.

6 THE EFFECT OF THE

LEADERSHIP OF

TRANSFORMATIONAL

LEADERSHIP (X) ON

ORGANIZATIONAL

COMMITMENT (Y) THROUGH

THE SATISFACTION OF WORK

(Z)

From the results that have been done earlier, it can

be seen that the style of transformational leadership

of organizational commitment through job

satisfaction of 0.148 can be seen also that the

transformational leadership style variables affected

significantly to job satisfaction with a significance

value of 0.000 influence on organizational

commitment. to employees of the Faculty of Social

and Political Sciences Airlangga University.

The transformational leadership style has a

positive and significant impact on employees'

organizational commitment. Leaders can be an

inspiration in work and determine the direction and

purpose of the organization. Leaders can

demonstrate their ability to delegate responsibility

with caution and instil a strong sense of ownership

of their employees. It is this leader's attitude that

affects employees to be able to commit to their

organization. This is supported also by the

descriptive statistical data of the respondents

working year where the number of respondents who

work more than 5 years by 84% indicates that most

employees have a high commitment that makes them

loyal to the organization.

Based on the results of the research show that

hypothesis testing is statistically proposed supported

by previous theory. Job satisfaction has a positive

and significant influence on organizational

commitment to support the results of research. So

this supports the research of Nafisah (2005) and

Transformational Leadership in Higher Education Institutions and Employee Satisfaction Interventions

723

Rivandi (2005) about the positive relationship

between job satisfaction with organizational

commitment.

7 CONCLUSION

The influence of transformational leadership style to

organizational commitment with job satisfaction as

an intervening variable (study at Faculty of Social

and Political Sciences of Airlangga University). This

research concludes that the four hypotheses

proposed in this research are all accepted.

Transformational leadership style (X) has a

positive and significant effect on job satisfaction (Z)

in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences

Airlangga University. Leadership style becomes an

important factor affecting work behavior such as

satisfaction and performance. The influence of job

satisfaction (Z) has a positive and significant effect

on organizational commitment (Y) has a standard

regression coefficient (beta) of 0.708; meaning that

the better the job satisfaction of employees of the

Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of the

University the higher the commitment of the

employee organization. The influence of

transformational leadership style (X) has a positive

and significant effect on organizational commitment

(Y) has a standardized regression coefficient (beta)

of 0.683. The indirect influence of transformational

leadership style (X) on organizational commitment

(Y) through job satisfaction (Z) has a positive and

significant effect is 0.332 x 0.448 = 0.149 where the

value is smaller than the direct influence between X

to Y of 0.683.

Evidently, the transformational leadership style

has a positive and significant influence both on job

satisfaction and organizational commitment of

employees in the Faculty, such leadership model

will certainly contribute positively to the

improvement of FISIP performance as an

organization. Management of employees by

effective organizations. If this transformational

leadership style practice turns out to increase

organizational commitment to encourage the

achievement of their job satisfaction, then this

leadership style practice may also be an example

that needs to be disseminated to other units within

the University.

The influence of transformational leadership

style on organizational commitment with job

satisfaction can be concluded that transformational

leadership style greatly influences work behavior

such as job satisfaction. These results illustrate that a

leader is able to appreciate and give encouragement

to its employees and strive to create a climate

conducive to the development of innovation and

employee creativity that will make employees feel

happy at work and do all the obligations to carry out

tasks without feeling forced so as to create job

satisfaction.

Leaders with transformational leadership styles

tend to have inspirational traits that motivate

employees to work, but internship does not only

come from charismatic leaders. With the

transformational leadership style applied, there is an

attachment between leaders and employees so that a

strong commitment to the organization arises

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