Business Managers/Executives/Administrators
OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived leadership practices and the GenX employee organizational commitment in the health insurance industry.
METHODOLOGY Data was collected GenX employees working for a major health insurance company in northern Florida. The response rate of 40.3 percent yielded 375 respondents, of which 129 were GenX (born between 1965 through1976). In addition to providing demographic information respondents completed the Leadership Practices Inventory (Observer) and the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (Monday et al., 1979). The typical respondent was a female (80.6%), in customer service (73%), with some college education (35.7%) or college degree (20.9%), who had worked for the company between 6 to 10 years (50.4%).
KEY FINDINGS Modelling the Way was the leadership practice seen as most frequently engaged in by their leaders, followed closely by Enabling, and then Encouraging the Heart, and next followed by Inspiring and Challenging. A statistically significant relationship was found between organizational commitment and all five leadership practices; with the strongest correlation found for Challenging and the lowest for Inspiring. “As a result,” the author concludes, “leaders in this industry can accomplish significant achievements through these GenX employees by using the five leadership practice strategies” (p. 90).