Leadership Styles and Staff Retention | Vodafone

TITLE
Leadership styles and staff retention: A comparative study of two Vodafone
Departments.
A Research Report
by

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Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to my family for the constant
support and encouragement, all the time sacrificed during this course. Also wish to
express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor for not only providing advice and
guidance throughout the duration of the project, but also for the profession and
patience that was extended towards me. Special thanks to all of the instructors in
Bachelors of Business Administration program for their commitment and sincerity in
their work. Deepest appreciation to all the respondents at Vodafone and respective
departments involved who had extended their not only their valuable time and
resources to assist with completion and success of this study, but also gave the
permission to carry out this work. Further extend a huge thanks to my colleagues
and friends for always providing support and motivation at all times.

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Declaration
I, the undersigned, declare that all the work in this assessment is original and was
solely undertaken by myself, except where otherwise accredited. All sections
containing quotations, summaries, describing an argument or concept and
references have been duly acknowledged andcited.

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Abstract
Organisations across the world have always considered leadership as an integral
part of business success. Leaders have been tasked to drive mission, vision and
values of an organisation as key elements to inspire and motivate employees
towards the success of organisational goals. Now leaders have also been tasked
maximise staff retention within an organisation. This is because over the years,
organisations have experienced high staff turnover and although several factors
contribute to employees leaving or staying with the organisation, leadership is at the
centre of it all. This led to the study of leadership styles and how they affect staff
retention within an organisation, building a comparative case study on two
departments with Vodafone. This comparative study looked how staff perceives their
leaders with each department, how leadership styles affect staff retention, the most
appropriate style an organisation should consider. An assessment was carried out
on leaders and their respective subordinates within each of the two departments. A
sample size of 52 candidates took part in this study through completion of
questionnaires and surveys. Analysis and presentation of data was outlined in
graphs and tables. Respondents from each department had different views of their
supervisors’ style of leadership. From the one department, a level of delighted about
their leaders approach to work was expressed and other department felt a level of
distraught towards the style of leadership being used. The findings from the study did
exhibit how imperative leadership is towards retaining staff and how each style of
leadership affects staff’s decision to stay or leave. Findings did suggest that
improvements were required in one of the departments due to the fact that the style
of leadership employed is causing high employee turnover. Employees did not feel
appreciated, regardless of all the work done and their contributions towards
decisions were neglected.
KEYWORDS: Leadership, Leadership Style, Staff Retention, Employee Turnover,
Organisation.

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“Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories
can be managed, but people must be led.”
by Ross Perot

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I – Introduction & Problem statement
1.1. INTRODUCTION ANDBACKGROUND
1.2. PROBLEMSTATEMENT
1.3. RESEARCH GOAL ANDQUESTIONS
1.4. RESEARCHOBJECTIVES
1.4.1. PrimaryObjectives
1.5. RESEARCH STATEMENT
1.6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY/DESIGN
1.7. EMPIRICALSTUDY
1.7.1. Research Design/Paradigm (Empirical)
1.7.2. Research Approach(Qualitative)
1.7.3. Unit ofAnalysis
1.7.4. TargetGroup/Population
1.7.5. Sample and Sampletype
1.7.6. Data CollectionMethods
1.7.7. Identification ofVariables
1.7.8. Dataanalysis
1.7.9. Measures to ensure reliability andvalidity
1.7.10. Ethicalguidelines
1.8. CHAPTERDIVISION
Chapter 2 – Literature Review(Theoretical)
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Literaturereview
2.3 Definition of terms
2.4 Conclusion
Chapter 3 – Empirical research (Results)
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Resultsobtained
3.3 Analysis of results anddiscussion

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3.3 Conclusion
Chapter 4 – Conclusions and recommendations
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Conclusions pertaining to theobjectives
4.3 Recommendations (based on the findings of theresearch)
List of References

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Chapter 1
1. INTRODUCTION ANDBACKGROUND
In each of the sectors, the organization are encountering excessive competition, which are
acting as driving force behind them to retain their core employees, which is the key of
acquiring and managing competitive advantage. Factors like rapid development of
globalization and new method of management are increasing the intensity of globalization,
which the firms are facing at both local and regional level. There lies the significance of
effective leadership as the leaders are playing major role in the way of attracting and retaining
staffs and thereby improving organizational productivity. Application of effective leadership
style plays a major role in the way of improving feeling among the staffs and thereby lead
them towards appropriate direction (Bake 2019). Employee retention is one of the most
significant voluntary moves, executed by the firms in order to have long term engagement of
the staffs. Retention of human resources is defined as the mode of ensuring long term
engagement of the staffs in an organization. This is the way, through which the firms can also
mitigate the issues related to employee turnover, which is utterly a great threat towards
improving organizational productivity. The fundamental purpose of employee retention is to
minimize the shifting tendency among the skilled and competent staffs as it can have an
adverse effect on organizational productivity and credibility of the firm to deliver high quality of
products or services to the customers (Sow et al.2016). Staffs retention allows both the line
managers and senior managers to retain critical skills and high performing staffs. This is the
way, through which committed staffs can also be retained.
Organisations have long being developed for the sole purpose of achieve goals and objectives
and such goals are driven by the people or employees, who are key to the organisation.
People have been the center around a success of an organisation therefore a company with
reliable and loyal staff will always have a competitive edge. Managers are often the
“middlemen” in large corporations and many employee problems can be settled with them.
However in recent years, most organisations have struggled to retain employees therefore
weakening the drive to achieve goals. Such organisations are termed to be experiencing
employee turnover. David G Allen (2009) concurs with the fact that organisations today are
facing issues of keep staff they want to keep, which is a critical factor. Nearly each year, focus
is placed on researching the matter of retaining staff and few organisations are yet to realize
the success of retaining quality staff. Employees leave organisations for all sorts of reasons.