Enhancing job satisfaction among local government servants in Ghana

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of transformational and transactional leadership behaviours on local government worker’s job satisfaction as well as to determine which one of these two leadership behaviours is a better predictor of job satisfaction among local government servants in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The research used a questionnaire to collect 322 usable data from the respondents, and employed multiple regressions to analyse the data. Findings The results showed that both transformational leadership and transactional leadership behaviours have significant positive effects on employee job satisfaction in Ghana’s Local Government service. Surprisingly, critical examination of the results further revealed that transactional leadership behaviour is a better predictor of job satisfaction relative to transformational leadership behaviour in Ghana’s Local Government Service. Moreover, the findings suggested that the influence of both leadership behaviours on job satisfaction may vary by workers’ age, level of education and gender. Practical implications These results imply that the more transactional and transformational leadership behaviours are exhibited or demonstrated by leaders, the more satisfaction local government servants will experience with their jobs. It further means that depending on the context or work environment, transactional leadership can surpass transformational leadership in enhancing employee outcomes. It also reinforces the need to ensure equity in employee reward systems as well as treatment of different age, educational and gender groups. Originality/value This result has contributed to knowledge by providing empirical evidence to refute the popular claim that transformation leadership produces better outcomes than transactional leadership. Besides, this study highlights the important roles of transformational and transactional styles in ensuring job satisfaction among the local government sub-sector, a generally under-researched sector.