The relationship between leadership styles and organizational commitment among employees of ngos working in the Ethiopian-Somali region

The present study investigates the relationship between leadership styles and organizational commitment among employees working at NGOs in the Ethiopian Somali Region. An explanatory sequential mixed method has been used to disclose the dominant style and corresponding employees' organizational commitments. The responses from quantitative survey of 136 employees and supervisors working in 17 different NGOs and in-depth interviews held with 7 leaders have been used to illustrate results. The quantitative data were analyzed by using the SPSS 21 version software. Summaries of demographic characteristics and descriptive states of main variables of the study were obtained and then presented. Moreover, the researcher examined the directions and strengths the association among the study variables through correlation analyses with leadership styles representing the independent variables and employees' organizational commitment as a dependent variable. The qualitative data were examined through content analyses of the responses provided by the participants of the in-depth interviews and results obtained thereafter were presented in the form of direct quotation and explanatory interpretations. Employees in these organizations tend to perceive that their respective leaders were displaying more of transactional and laissez-faire than transformational behaviors. The preponderance of evidences from both quantitative survey and qualitative in-depth interviews establish the connection between the leadership styles and organizational commitment among employees working in these NGOs. Keywords: Transactional, transformational, laissez-faire leadership styles, employees' organizational commitments, NGOs, Ethiopian-Somali region.