Impact of the different level of transformational leadership on the employees’ performance: A case study of the ADNOC

The organizational performance is directly dependent on the employee’s performance, which is directly associated with the leadership and employee’s relationship. Therefore, leadership shows a crucial role in the performing enhancement of the workers. There are different leadership styles that have different effects on employees in various organizations. Similarly, there are different levels of leadership. In this article, comprehensive data is collected from 638 employees to evaluate the role of leadership and its impact on various dimensions of the employees’ performance, e.g., motivations, appraisal, job security, various level of leadership support, etc. The results revealed that in UAE, there is a close tie between the employees’ performance and leadership. The employees’ motivation, performance, and job security are highly dependent on leadership relations with the employees.


Introduction
*The ever-changing environment of the business required everyone to utilize its resources at maximum if they want to be in business. The top organizational assets are human resources and bring competitive advantages to organizations. Employees play an essential role and a significant impact on the performance of an organization. One of the significant consequences in a business organization occurs when managers believe the organization is working at the top level of efficiency, and inputs from the employees are not necessary. However, at any stage, the performance of an organization significantly depends upon the quality of its workforce at different levels. The human resource is considered as a source of consistent improvement. The complexity of today's organization requires leaders to view the performance in several areas simultaneously. Hofstede (2001) highlighted that the performance measurement system should be used to measure the performance of all the assets, including the human. It provides continuously accumulative feedback for the performance and strategic results. The individual employee's performance has an effect on the larger objective and targets of the organization. It is thus required to manage the employee's performance through performance appraisals, written reports, etc.
Performance management is an ongoing and joint process where the employee, with the support from a business organization, struggles to improve the employee's performance and therefore to contribute to the achievement of the organization's broader objectives. A successful performance management system is one, which requires the full participation of the employee and the manager through effective communication and goal sharing. It is a medium for employees and leaders to develop an understanding of the mission of the organization, how to achieve it, and to what extent it has been obtained. There are some barriers that may affect the employee's performance despite being motivated to do it. These are unfledged competencies and capabilities, inapplicable performance goals, and lack of feedback regarding performance (Hofstede, 2001).
Effective leadership ensures larger participation of the employees in understanding the objectives of the organization. To have an effective organization, the people within the organization needs to be inspired to invest himself or herself in the organization's mission. Employees are needed to be encouraged to become effective that can be achieved through effective leadership. Leadership plays the most critical part in business organizations to achieve its goals (Theisohn and Lopes, 2013). Transformational leadership style has positive and optimistic influence on the employee that leads to improving overall organizational performance. Transformational leadership is regarded as an extension to the transactional leadership. Transformational leadership results in enhanced performance beyond expectations, whereas transactional leadership can convey the performance according to the expected level. Transactional leadership style was appropriate for the stable business organization with slight or no change in the business environment, but this is not the circumstance now, today's business organization is challenged with tremendous and great competition and limited resources.
In the current era, the performance of employees is highly dependent on the organizational structure and its leadership. The leadership style can significantly affect the performance of employees either negatively or positively. Such an impact can improve or deteriorate the organization's productivity and profit. Therefore, in this paper, the nexus between the leadership style and employees' performance is evaluated. This research offers a complete assessment of the organization in the oil and gas sector, and based on the data gathered from the employees, it offers a suggestion for improvement.
The rest of the paper is organized such that section 2 provides the literature review, and section 3 discusses the research methodology. Section 4 presented the results and discussion, while the paper is concluded in section 5.

Literature review
There are several leadership styles, and, as mentioned earlier, distinctive styles are desirable for different situations. A leader should distinguish which style will be best suitable for handling a given case. The following are the five basic leadership styles: Autocratic, Bureaucratic, Laissez-faire or hands-off style, Democratic, and Situational leadership (Supian et al., 2018). The conventional approach of leadership is known as Autocratic Leadership Style. The leader has as much power and decision-making authority as possible. The employees are not consulted, and they are expected to just follow instructions without any clarification. There is a fixed set of punishment and reward programs. This kind of leadership is appropriate and suitable for handling an unorganized or inexperienced workforce or where disorderliness and indiscipline are high. This style is also convenient in situations where time is of a high significance, immediate action is required such as handling a crisis, work needs to be synchronized with other departments or organizations, different styles have become ineffective, or when the staff challenges a manager's authority (Brower and Balch, 2005). This style should not be used when employees become tense or appalling. In addition, this should not be implemented when staff has stopped making an effort, or there is a symptom of an increase in absenteeism and damage of interest in the job (Berry, 2010). In Bureaucratic Leadership Style, everything is done as described in the procedure or policy; no deviation or nonconformity is tolerated. This style cannot be named as leadership, but more suitable is controlling the job of enforcing the rules and regulations on the staff and employees. This style is practical and applicable for the staff and employees who are doing the routine job over and over, and following the policy and procedures is the only way to avoid errors. Moreover, it is suitable in cases where following procedures and standards is of dominant importance and significance. This style is ideal for the staffperforming job that requires handling money or in the fiancé department (Brower and Balch, 2005). This style should not be used when staff or the employees are doing only the jobs which are expected from them and nothing more or when the team or employees start losing attention in the role.
Another style is Laissez-faire or hands-off Leadership style that does not provide any guidance and does not interfere or restrict the staff's authority for setting the goal; decision making and resolving the problems are given to the team only. This type of leadership style is best suitable where the staff is highly skilled, experienced, and well educated, and when staff takes self-importance in work and is selfmotivated. The staff does not require supervision and can bring the desired result on its own. For example, when outside experts, consultants, or authorities are hired for the job, this kind of leadership is suitable (Mone and London, 2018). This style should not be used if the responsibility and accountability of leaders or managers and the responsibility of the staff start becoming uncertain. Additionally, if the staff starts thinking that the manager is unavailable, this style should be avoided.
In the Democratic Leadership Style, there are two-way communications between the leaders and the staff or employees. The employees take portion in the decision-making process. The final decisionmaking power rests and suits with the leader. This style is appropriate in situations where a piece of the information is with the leaders, and another part of the information is with the followers and employees; for instance when it is needed to solve a complicated problem where numerous inputs are required. The leader is not always anticipated to have full information in all situations. This style increases the motivation level of the team, and healthier results are achieved. This style has a common benefit: The team members are sensed to be engaged in the decision-making process, and the leader takes wellinformed decisions (Brower and Balch, 2005). This style is not useful in situations where sufficient time is not available for taking everyone's contribution or where errors in the decision are not tolerable. Moreover, if the security of the staff is essential, this style should not be used. Selection of the most appropriate leadership style depends on the following factors: Personal background of the leader, which the manager's personal view about the most suitable form is the staff, whom, the character, personality and background of the staff and the organization, which the belief, values, and concerns of the business organization dictate the selection of most appropriate leadership style.
On the other hand, the organizations are suffering from employee's behaviors, especially the authorized employees. Most organizations' crimes were coming from authorized employees such as Steal data, fraud, and money laundering, and so on. Several works have been proposed to reveal the employees' crimes in the literature (Ali et al., 2015;Al-Dhaqm et al., 2014;2016a;2016b;Aldhaqm et al., 2015;Ngadi et al., 2012).

Research design and methodology
The methodology section offers an insight into the methods that were used to obtain the data used in this study as well as the techniques that were used to process this data into presentable and understandable information. The chapter also discusses the selected research design for this thesis and how it is suited to help the study realize its principal objectives. Research design is a critical aspect of any research since it dictates the ability of the researcher to achieve all the study objectives successfully. It also determines the efficiency with which the study questions are answered, and the research problem solved (De Vaus, 2001). By definition, the term research design refers to the collection of methods and procedures that a researcher uses to collect and analyze the data that describes the variables used in such a study (De Vaus, 2001). According to Creswell (2007) and Creswell and Poth (2018), research design reveals whether an investigation is experimental, descriptive, semi-experimental, meta-analytic, correlational, or review.
It also reveals the sub-categorization of study types while defining the core components, such as the research problem, the design of the experiment for the case of the experimental approach, as well as the variables used. Since the research design is the principal framework that is specifically designed to help in finding answers to the study questions, it defines the plans for the data collection and analysis processes selected by a researcher (Bordens and Abbott, 2018). Overall, research design forms the foundation on which all the constituent activities in a study are based.
The preferred design used in the study was the mixed-method design, which involves the use of more than a single design. This design allows for the use of multiple methods that may not be related (Sreejesh and Mohapatra, 2013). It was nominated due to its capability to allow the application of both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches in a single study. For the purpose of an exhaustive collection of the required data, it was vital to come up with a plan that exploits all the sources of data at the researcher's disposal (Tomlinson and McTighe, 2006).
In this case, it was inadequate to rely on a single source of information as such a strategy would paralyze the initiative to obtain enough information whose analysis would reveal the actual trends shown by the studied parameters. It was also established that the data analysis process could be implemented more accurately if such a process would involve the provision of numbers describing the selected trends as well as details to help the target audiences with a better understanding of the findings obtained. Therefore, the analysis of the data was performed using the interview analysis method, which provides a lot of details about the studied themes, and the quantitative method, which offers simple statistics that can easily be interpreted to gain an in-depth knowledge of the relationships established among the studied variables (Tomlinson and McTighe, 2006). Overall, the application of the mixed-method design made it possible to overcome the weaknesses of quantitative methods through the use of qualitative methods and vice versa.
A typical research methodology highlights the methods and approaches used to obtain the data used in a particular study (O'Leary, 2004). It proceeds to break down the selected method by mentioning the philosophical frameworks that are used to implement it (O'Leary, 2004). Overall, research method mainly offers additional descriptions of the study design.
Data collection was attained using three different methods, which are interviews, case studies, and surveys. The case studies were conducted on the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (ARAMCO) and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The relevant information was gathered from the institutions' annual reports and existing literature on the topics of interest. Interviews were conducted on employees and various administrators from Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Company, Partex Oil and Gas Group, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, YAS Oilfield Services National Holding, and Al-Mojil Company (NHM), and Emdad Services LLC. On the other hand, surveys were conducted on the same organizations from which the interviews were done.
The meetings were structured and contained questions related to the selected themes of this study, which are the core metrics of staff productivity. Interviews were conducted using phones, Skype, and face-to-face meetings. On the other hand, questionnaires were sent to selected organizations, which were expected to fill the stated questions within a period of one week. The interview data were analyzed using NVIVO and manual coding to make the results more presentable. On the other hand, the survey data was analyzed quantitatively using E-views software. The explanatory and the test of statistical significance philosophies were used for the qualitative and quantitative data, respectively. Permission was obtained from the administrations of the studied organizations before the commencement of any studies.

Results and discussion
This section provides results and provides a detailed analysis of the data. It also provides descriptive statistics and correlation analysis.

Descriptive statistics
The average revenue per employee and human capital ROI were characterized by means of 13.9% and 9.92%, respectively. On the other hand, the corresponding standard deviations were 7.3885 and 3.6175, which indicate data points that are widely spread way from the mean. The average revenue per employee was $136,800, while the corresponding standard deviation was 59.4618. The substantially high standard deviation implies that revenue per employee was the variable that was characterized by the broadest spread of data away from the mean. Tables 1-3 present the descriptive statistics of the Employees' Error.

Correlation test results
To obtain the suspected relationships, the correlation test was performed on the datasets representing each of the studied variables. The nature of the relationship was determined not only by the magnitude of the correlation coefficients obtained but also by the sign that precedes each of such values. The revenue per employee and human capital ROI were characterized by correlation coefficients of 0.9532 and 0.9324 as presented in Table 5 and Table 6. These values indicate that each of the stated variables is characterized by a positive correlation. They also suggest that revenue per employee and human capital ROI always increase with an increase in the number of departments that employ transformational leadership. The magnitudes of the numbers also tell a lot of information regarding the strengths of such correlations. For instance, revenue per employee and human capital ROI, which have the highest positive correlation coefficients, are the performance metrics that are mostly affected by transformational leadership in an organization. On the other hand, in Table 4, the number of errors made by employees has a correlation coefficient of -0.9559, which is a negative relationship. This value implies that the number of mistakes in the studied organizations always reduce as such companies continue to employ more elements of transformational leadership.

Analysis
This section provides a review of the data collected from 638 participants. The question of wise analysis is presented. Fig. 1 highlights that the organization is primarily man-dominated, where female participation is only 5%. It shows that there is a significant lack of gender equality in the oil and gas sector. It needs considerable effort from the stakeholders to ensure gender equality in this sector. The participant was also asked about the marital status, and 90 percent of the participant working in the oil and gas sector are married while only 10 percent are single. Fig. 2 presented the marriage status of the employees. The educational analysis revealed the 82 percent of the employees are having a master or higher qualification, while 12 percent have a technical education. However, there is 8 percent of employees with high school education. The details are shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3: Education-wise breakdown of the sample size
There is still a high number of other nationality employees are running the business. Only 24 percent of local residents are working in the oil and gas sector. During the data collection, 55 percent participant mentioned as non-emeriti and 21 percent mentioned as other nationalities. The stakeholder needs to focus on the development of the local to train them for the job and reduce the reliability of the other nationality. Fig. 4 presented the analysis of the national wise distribution.
The duration of the current job is entirely satisfactory, as more than 71 percent of the total participants are working in the same organization for more than 6 years. It reflects that job satisfaction is somehow high in organizations where they are working. Fig. 5 presents the duration of jobs in the same organization.   Similarly, the hopes of most employees are high form the organization. It is in support of Fig. 5. The hope is the key factor in retaining employees in the organization, and more than 92 percent of the employees are having positive expectations about the organization. Fig. 6 shows the results of the participants. In the current case study, 85 percent of participants believe that the role of job sensitive position impacts job motivation. While 15 percent are either neutral or not agree with the impact of the job sensitivity on the motivation. Fig. 8 presents the responses. reveals that the impact of job sensitivity on the motivation is comparable with the team leaders. However, the confidence of the team leader's impact on the employees' motivation is more robust than the sensitivity of the job.  When the participants were asked whether their organization is open to change or transform the leadership. 89 percent of responses were positive, and 9 percent ware neutral. Only two percent of the participant mentioned that their organization is not open to such change. Fig. 11 presents the response of the participants. Fig. 12 highlights the impact of the leadership transform impact on the work environment. Among 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% More than 10 years 6-10 years  In the study, the employees were also asked about the performance appraisal. When were they asked whether they are satisfied with the performance appraisal system in their organizations? Twenty percent of the employees were highly satisfied, while 55 percent of the participants were satisfied with the system. The response of fifteen percent of employees was neutral, while about ten percent were not satisfied with the appraisal system. Fig. 13 highlights these results.

Fig. 13: Employees satisfaction with performance appraisal
The employees are generally satisfied with the supportive response of the immediate supervisor. Fig. 14 shows that about 86 percent of the employees are supporting that the role of the immediate supervisor is deceiving. The ten percent of employees are neutral, while nearly four percent were not satisfied with the task of immediate supervisor.  Fig. 15 presents the results of whether the morale and performance of the employees are high or not. About 90 percent of participants are either agree or strongly agree with the question. While the response of the seven percent participants was neutral. There were three percent of employees who were either disagree or strongly disagree with the issue.  Finally, Fig. 17 shows that whether the employees were paid according to their performance or not. Seventy-one percent of participants agreed or strongly agreed. While 30 percent or not satisfied with the compensation and performance ratio.

Conclusion
The details in the previous section presented the insight into the performance of employees and their leadership at a different level, i.e., immediate supervisor, team leader, and leadership. The employees were asking closed-end questions to reveal the in-depth insight into the organization. There was a total of 638 participants where-in the most case, at least 633 participants recorded their responses. The overall analysis showed that employees are generally satisfied with leaders at different levels. Similarly, they are also confident with the future growth in the organization and loyal to the organization. However, gender inequality is an issue. The second issue is dependency on nonnational employees. It is recommended that the concerned quarter should focus on the gender inequality in the organization. Secondly, the empowerment of the local workforce should be prioritized to prepare the local cap for the future and reduce the dependency on the international workforce. Furthermore, it is also recommended that a centralized body should evaluate the ratio between employee performance and the wages paid to the employee. Although a reasonable amount of the participant is satisfied with the ration but about 25% are not satisfied.

Fig. 17: Balance between the performance and compensation
Compliance with ethical standards