Relationship between Military Commander's Leadership Styles and Personnel Organizational Commitment

In a knowledge-based era, human resources are regarded as the most fundamental capital for an organization and key factor for its success and promotion. Similarly, organizational commitment is among the most crucial parameters in protecting and developing such a capital. Organizational commitment by itself is influenced by many factors including leadership which is dealt with in this study. To address this issue, three leadership styles including developmental, interactive and non-interventionist styles (emotional, conventional and continuous) were investigated in this study. First, the effect of leading styles of commanders on the staff’s organizational commitment and then the relationship between each style and the commitment level were quantitatively investigated based on a description and correlational analysis. In this regard, from a large sample size covering 800 commanders, managers and experts from certain staff departments of the Iranian Air Force 223 were randomly selected. The analysis revealed a statistically significant and positive relationship between the first two styles of leadership and organizational commitment, while the relationship with the non-interventionist one was negative. So, the military commanders and managers are recommended to enhance organizational commitment in their authorities through developing their leadership styles.