The effect of leadership styles on organizational loneliness and prosocial service behaviors in hotel businesses

The labor-intensive activity of hotel businesses reveals the importance of the human factor in all circumstances. Employees in hotel businesses are a part of the service offered to customers and directly affect their satisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, effective and efficient management of positive and negative behaviors of hotel employees towards customers and coworkers within the business will make significant contributions to the success of hotel businesses. The purpose of this study is to reveal the effect of autocratic, democratic, liberal and servant leadership styles on the organizational loneliness levels and prosocial service behaviors of the employees in five-star hotel businesses operating in the cities of Istanbul and Antalya. Quantitative research method was used in the field research and data were collected by questionnaire technique. While carrying out the data analysis, validity and reliability analysis, independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance (Anova), correlation and multiple linear regression analysis were used. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the leadership styles perceived in hotel businesses affect organizational loneliness and prosocial service behaviors. Accordingly, it has been determined that perceived democratic and servant leadership styles negatively affects the organizational loneliness and positively affects the prosocial service behaviors. In contrast to this, liberal leadership styles positively affects the organizational loneliness and negatively affects the prosocial service behaviors. Besides, it has been determined that the autocratic leadership style only affects social loneliness positively. Finally, it was concluded that the opinions of the hotel employees showed a significant difference according to some demographic variables.