Author: George Stephen Matiko (Institute of Accountancy Arusha, Tanzania) and Elias Elisha Mbuti (Institute of Accountancy Arusha, Tanzania)
Abstract: This study aimed to explore leadership style and employee commitment among government hospitals in Dodoma City using the cross-sectional research design. The sample of 120 out of 889 employees was determined through simple random sampling procedure but only 102 returned the questionnaires. The following leadership styles were found to be existing: status quo, people oriented, democratic, task oriented and autocratic. Affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment existed in the organizations under investigation. There is a significant positive correlation between commitment of employees and two styles of leadership: democratic leadership accounting for 24.1% and autocratic leadership, accounting for 5.6%. There is no significant relationship between employees’ commitment and the following leadership styles: task oriented, people oriented, status oriented and laissez faire. The study recommends that employees need to be appraised for their commitment to the organizations. This can be done through various types of motivation in order to maintain their commitment spirit. The leaders of the organizations should be encouraged to increase the use of democratic and autocratic leadership styles which have accounted for employees’ commitment.