The effect of leadership styles on organizational culture and innovation performance

Nowadays, organizations must implement innovations due to changes in the market and diversification of customer needs. Organizational environment that will support the innovation is needed for the realization of innovation and for sustainability. The creation of a vision that will provide change and innovation and its adoption to the organization will be possible with leadership. Leaders must demonstrate leadership behavior that shapes and supports the innovative organizational culture to adapt to the competitive environment. With this organizational culture, employees are motivated and rewarded for innovative behavior. Culture in innovative organizations is as important as leaders. For the success and continuity of innovation, organizational culture must support innovation. The formation of an innovative organizational culture and the transformation of the organization in this direction is only possible with leadership. On the other hand, the leadership styles plays important role in selection and application of the innovation strategy. In this study, it has been investigated how leadership styles, which is an important factor in the continuation of the existence of organizations, affect innovation performance and organizational culture. In addition, the role of organizational culture in the relationship between leadership styles and innovation performance is tried to be determined. The research was carried out on 370 employees working at 89 SMEs in Gaziantep. The data collected have been analyzed by using the structural equation model and regression analysis. According to the results of the analysis, it has been determined that the transformational leadership style has a positive effect on the innovation performance. On the other hand, it is determined that organizational culture plays a mediating role in this effect. The transactional leadership style did not have a positive or negative effect on the innovation performance. It is thought that the results obtained from the research will contribute to both the literature and the organizations that will use them. Key Words: Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Organizational Culture, Innovation Performance