The Role of Transformational Leadership Style in Enhancing Lecturers’ Job Satisfaction

The challenges confronting Malaysia’s Research Universities in their futuristic movement towards world Class University are enormous. Leadership styles employed in higher education institutions play crucial role in achieving lecturers’ job satisfaction. This paper examines the influence of transformational leadership style employed by departments heads on improving lecturers’ job satisfaction. The population comprised the lecturers from three leading Research Universities. The responses were subjected to multiple regression analysis. The findings uncovered ‘inspirational motivation’ and ‘idealized influence’ as most often used practices of transformational leadership by the departments heads and identified that transformational leadership improves lecturers’ job satisfaction more than other leadership styles.