A Review of Different Leadership Styles in Large Sized Indian Organizations in the Infrastructure Sector and their Impact on Organizational Commitment

Infrastructure sector in India plays a pivotal role in fostering sustainable development of the country. In fact, it plays a crucial role in the core sector of the economy. There has, however, not been a fast paced growth in the infrastructure sector in various parts of the country owing to very many reasons like improper prioritization of this sector in the government planning & budget allocation, insufficient fund availability, political differences between the ruling party & opposition parties, problems in land acquisition, bureaucracy, corruption. Organizations in the space of infrastructure, however, once commence & continue work apart from issues of dealing with Govt bodies, locals, regulatory & taxation issues, financial management need to have effective leadership within their organizations to deliver the objectives that they have set forth. This research aims to review leadership styles in large sized Indian organizations in the infrastructure sector and to examine the impact of different leadership styles on organizational commitment as commitment to the organization or the concerned business entity, can be a great differentiator in achievement of the business and societal goals of the organization. 159 respondents from the Indian Public and Private sector companies in the infrastructure sector were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. These respondents belong to different role bands or strata of management. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential tools. Findings from the research show that among the five organizations, transformational leadership style is followed by most of the organizations as employee participation in the decision making process is considered important and though final decision rest on leaders but still the organization is open to the suggestions of employees. Results shows that though transformational and transactional leadership style along with employee empowerment and organizational citizenship behavior has significant impact on the organizational commitment but still major factor which contributes in boosting the commitment level of employees is transformational leadership style. Thus, leaders in close involvement and association with the employees should work on handling the challenges borne by the infrastructure sector by considering the suggestion of employees. It should overcome the business and people problems in order to contribute towards the sustainable growth of the country.