Organisational culture, employee satisfaction, perceived leader emotional competency and personality type: An exploratory study in a South African engineering company

The purpose of this study was to investigate employees’ experiences of their organisation’s culture and general satisfaction levels and to explore whether potential explanations for these could be derived from measures of the perceived emotional competency and dominant personality type of senior management as aspects of their predominant leadership style. The South African Culture Instrument (SACI), an Employee Satisfaction Survey questionnaire and the 360 Degree Emotional Competency Profiler (ECP) were administered to a sample of 181 (SACI), 170 (Employee Satisfaction Survey questionnaire) and 88 (ECP) volunteer employees of a South African engineering company. All nine senior directors voluntary participated in completing the MBTI, Form G. The results indicated significant differences between the various biographical groups regarding the measured dimensions. The ECP and MBTI results showed the affective and social aspects of leadership behaviour to be a development area for senior management. This study makes an important contribution to the expanding body of knowledge that focuses on the evaluation of organisational factors and leader attributes that influence the motivation, commitment and satisfaction of employees in South African organisations.