The role of transformational leadership on job satisfaction in Thai millennials.

Abstract

In a competitive edge, human resources is one of the crucial factors to sustain businesses. Millennials became the largest human capital in the global workforce. Thus, companies must adapt themselves to survive in the new environment in preparing leaders that can manage the ‘Millennial’. It is known that transformational leadership can help millennials play their roles optimally in the organization. Thus, this study is conducted to understand the effects of transformational leadership within the framework by Avolio and Bass (1990) on job satisfaction in millennial workers in Thailand. The qualitative method with a semi-structured in-depth interview was used to gain insight from Thai millennials experienced in having job satisfaction during being led by transformational leaders. The coding system conducted data analysis. The findings from this research suggest that the experience of millennials in Thailand is corresponding with all dimensions in the transformational leadership theory developed by Avolio and Bass (1990). Trust and empowering are the critical value in millennials’ perception of their supervisor, leading to enhance job satisfaction among millennial workers. Trust came from the skills to show supervisors understand issues and can resolve those issues reasonably. Empowering and extrinsic rewards should be introduced to maintain the job satisfaction. The finding of the study can be utilized as a source for primary developing managers or supervisors in an organization.