The Impact of Leadership Styles on Emotional Well-Being: A Study of Non-Executive Employees in a Selected Private Bank in Sri Lanka.

Abstract

The present study examines how four different leadership styles, namely Leader Member Exchange (LMX), Destructive, Laissez-Faire, and Transformational leadership, impact the emotional well-being of non-executive employees in a selected private bank in Sri Lanka. The stress levels have increased, with the level of absenteeism and employee turnover in post-pandemic work, where there have been concerns about how leadership behaviour can be used to boost staff morale. Although many previous studies have determined leadership as the predictor of well-being in the workplace, empirical studies on the specific category of non-executive banking employees in Sri Lanka are restricted. The research design used was a quantitative cross-sectional design. The structured questionnaire, developed based on validated constructs selected within the existing literature on leadership and emotional well-being, was used to collect the data. Using stratified random sampling, the sampling scheme consisted of 160 a total population and 113 a sample of non-executive employees of Selected Private Bank in Sri Lanka. Pearson correlation and multiple regression were used on the data through SPSS to determine the impact of each style. They found that transformational leadership had the best effect on emotional well-being, followed by Laissez-Faire and LMX. Destructive Leadership had an insignificant effect on the sample. The findings highlight the importance of positive and encouraging leadership in building emotional health. The research is helpful in leadership empirical studies and fills the gap in the few studies on leadership effectiveness in the South Asian banking scenario.