Leadership styles and employee motivation: A comparative study of transformational and transactional approaches at Njombe Town Council, Tanzania

Abstract

This study examined leadership styles and employee motivation: a comparative study of transformational vs. transactional approaches at
Njombe town council. The study was guided by the following specific objectives: to examine the influence of transformational leadership on employee motivation in Njombe town council and to examine the influence of transactional leadership on employee motivation in Njombe town council. The study adopted a positivist research philosophy, a Quantitative approach, and a cross-sectional survey design was used. 331 samples were drawn from a population of 1910 employees using a stratified sampling technique and simple random sampling. The questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regressions were used as data analysis instruments. The comparative analysis at Njombe Town Council found that Transformational Leadership has the biggest significant positive effect on Employee Motivation (B = 0.434, p = 0.000) and the highest standardized Beta value (0.450) compared to transactional Leadership (B = 0.169, p = 0.016, Beta 0.157). Based on these findings, it is recommended that policymakers and HR practitioners adopt a unified leadership model that develops transformational characteristics (vision, coaching, intellectual stimulation) linked with effective transactional systems (clarity of goals, rewards contingent on performance, and performance feedback) in order to optimize intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.