The impact of task-focused and people-focused leadership behaviours on knowledge management:An application in Kütahya

The importance of knowledge is increasing day by day. By the noticing of the strategic importance of knowledge by the companies, companies has a great effort in integrating knowledge into their operations. These efforts, as a whole, are called knowledge management. Within the context of severe competition, the ability of organisation to manage the information reflects the degree of their success. Companies that accept the knowledge as an important factor in their success pay attentions to knowledge management and try to set up an organisation where knowledge is formed and shared. Knowledge management isn?t a concept which is discussed in the upper level managers convertions. The organizations which can see future noticed that, time, budget and more importantly leader should be paired for knowledge management. The missions of the knowledge leader are to adapt knowledge sharing and management to the organization culture and provide strategic advantages to the organization. In the first part of the study the concepts which are related to knowledge and knowledge management, process and models of knowledge were examined. In the second part, the discription of leadership, kinds and current ideas about leadership were considered. In the last part, the effects of leadership behaviors to knowledge management are examined by a survey. In this study, the influence of leadership behaviour and task-focused leadership behaviour on knowledge management in organizations has been examined. In tihs respect, the questionnaire was distirbuted to 215 employees from two large-sized private organizations. However, the study reveals that people-focused leadership expectancy is quite high among employees. Ultimately, knowledge management that can not be fully implemented in organizations will possibly be effectively conducted through people-focused leadership. The analysis represent that task-focused leadership behaviour is influential in organizations. Correspondingly, it is suggested that organizations will have more efficient and powerful structure due to people-focused leadership behaviour.