Situational Leadership Style and Work Environment Influences Towards Work Discipline Through Motivation

Situational Leadership Style and Work Environment Influences Towards Work Discipline Through Motivation

Hengki Hermawan¹, Sugeng Mulyono², Djuni Farhan^3
1Master of Management, Postgraduate, Universitas Gajayana Malang
²Lecturer Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gajayana Malang
³Lecturer Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gajayana Malang

ABSTRACT

Employee performance in public service agencies is determined, among other things, by the appropriateness of leadership style, work environment, employee motivation and discipline. This research aimed to examine influences of situational leadership, motivation and environment of work towards employees’ discipline of work; to examine influences of situational leadership on discipline  of work through motivation; and to examine influences of work environment towards discipline of work through motivation. The research population was government employees in Bangsal District, Mojokerto Regency, East Java, Indonesia with the status of Civil Servants (PNS). The determination of sample number used the saturated sampling method, so that all of population members consisting of thirty five people were included into the sample. Data collection used a Likert scale questionnaire which was distributed directly to the respondents. The data analysis technique uses path analysis with Warp PLS 5 software. The research resultedin some conclusion that: (1) situational leadership, environment of work and motivation gave positive and significant influences on employee work discipline; (2) motivation playeda significant role that mediated influence of situational leadership towards work discipline; (3) motivation played a significant role in mediating influence of work environment towards work discipline. Therefore, if the management at District Office seeks to improve employee work discipline, this can be done through consistent implementation of transformational leadership accompanied by a conducive work environment and strengthening employee motivation.

 Keywords: Situational leadership, Work  environment,  Motivation, Work discipline.

INTRODUCTION

Work From Home (WFH) is a work model implemented by most organizations since the spread of COVID-19. Government and private agencies have started implementing the Work From Home (WFH) work system because it is seen as a solution to respond to pandemic conditions so that the organization’s operations continue. This work model can be carried out because of advances in information and communication technology that allows a person to carry out work without being limited by space and time and work relationships are flexible. However, WFH as a new work model is seen as having advantages and disadvantages. These advantages include: there is a work-life balance with family, time and cost efficiency, encouraging morale and reducing laziness. While the shortcomings included: adaptation to work atmosphere, difficulty of coordinating with colleagues, blurring of boundaries between the office and home, and implementation of work discipline (Mungkasa, 2020). However, discipline of work is a necessity to sustain the organization’s operations to achieve goals. Work discipline is an important factor in regulating the behavior and way of working of employees. The rules are in the form of a set of values and norms that are agreed upon by members of the organization to regulate how they behave in carrying out their work.

In Rivai’s research (2013) it was conluded that discipline of work is a means for managers or leaders in communicating to employees, which made them be willing to obey the regulation established by the agency. Employees with high work discipline are expected to conduct work in effective and efficient manner. In other words, employees with high discipline tend to work according to regulations, even though they are not under direct supervision by the leadership so that the application of WFH will be optimal if the character of work discipline is attached to each employee. Several factors shape some characteristics of employees’ discipline including aspects of leadership, work environment, motivation and work systems. According to Murtie (2012) every leader basically has a different behavior in directing subordinates to be willing to contribute to achieving organizational goals. Appropriate leadership style is needed to motivate employees to follow organizational regulations. Through the right leadership style, the process of influencing the behavior of members of the organization to move towards the targeted goals becomes effective. In addition to the relevant leadership style, the supporting variable for strengthening employee discipline to work WFH is the work environment aspect. This is because an organization with a convenient environment can encourage an increase in employee morale to work according to their main duties (Mungkasa, 2020).

For this reason, it is necessary to create a pleasant atmosphere in order to encourage employee morale to work optimally (Sunyoto&Sagala, 2013). The results of Kristhina et.al. research. (2015) and Hartono (2017) indicated the role of leadership style and environment of work gave a direct influence to work discipline and through the mediation of motivation. The role of motivation as a mediating variable is necessary, because the motivation of individuals in carrying out work is not only due to aspects related to suitable style of leadership and environment of work but also depends on how strong the employee’s motivation is to consistently carry out tasks. Because, motivation is a psychological condition that encourages someone to carry out certain actions optimally. A person’s motivation can increase when individual needs can be met by the organization (Robbins & Judge, 2015). Based on these theoretical conceptions and problems, the formulated problems are: Do situational style of leadership, work environment and motivation give a significant influenceto employee discipline?; Does the situational leadership style give significant influence to employee discipline through motivation?; and Does the work environment have a significant effect on employee discipline through motivation? The research objectives were to prove whether situational leadership style, work environment and motivation might significantly influence employee discipline; to prove whether situational leadership style could significantly influence employee discipline through motivation; and to prove whether the work environment could significantly influence employees’ discipline through motivation.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP

The leader functions centrally for every organization, because the leader has the power to decide and plan what steps must be taken by the organization, so if an organization exists without the presence of a leader it can be ascertained if the organization does not have a major milestone in the foundation of the organization. The effectiveness of leaders in influencing subordinates to be willing to contribute to the implementation of organizational tasks depends on the application of leadership style (Robbins & Judge, 2015). Various leadership styles that can be chosen to be implemented, one of which is a situational leadership style. The situational leadership approach is a theory that seeks to find a middle ground between views on universal organizational and management principles, with the view that each organization is unique and has different situations that must be faced with a certain leadership style (Purwanto, 2005). One of the factors that indicate differences in organizational situations is the level of maturity and behavior of subordinates. The level of maturity of subordinates also determines where leadership style tendencies need to be directed. The success of a leader depends on his ability to adapt his leadership style to the environment and individual characteristics of his subordinates.

To determine the most effective style in dealing with certain circumstances, it is necessary to consider the strength of three elements, namely the leader, subordinates and the situation as a whole. The situational leadership model was developed by Hersey and Blanchard (Robbins & Judge, 2015), initially referring to a situational theory approach that emphasizes leader behavior and is a practical model that can be used to make decisions effectively in influencing subordinates. The situational approach is based on the assumption that no single leadership style is right for every leader under all conditions. Therefore, situational leadership will apply a certain style based on consideration of the factors of the leader, followers, and the situation. According to Robbins and Judge (2015), this situational leadership model attracts attention because it recommends dynamic and flexible leadership types, whereas according to Thoha (2009), situational leadership style is the need to understand the relationship between the application of leadership and certain situations. These situations are described by Fiedler (Robbins & Judge, 2015) in three empirical dimensions, namely: leader-member relations, levels in structure oftask, and theposition of the leaderin getting power from formal authority. There are several indicators to measure the effectiveness of situational leadership, namely: decision-making ability, motivational ability, communication ability, ability to control subordinates, sense of responsibility and ability to control emotions (Paramita, 2017).

Work  Environment

The environment of work should be considered by leaders, since it has an influence on the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization’s operations. According to Afandi (2018), work environment exists in the environment that can influence workers in doing their duties. Meanwhile, according to Farida (2016), the environment of work is a situation, in which a good workplace relates to both physical and non-physical which mayprovide a pleasant, safe, peaceful feeling. Referring to Schultz & Schultz (2017), work environment is a condition related to workplace characteristics influencing employees’ behavior and attitudes, which is related to psychological changes that happen while doing a work. Thus, environment of work is some kind of atmosphere that can both physically and non-physically influence the comfort of employees’ work. According to Siagian (2014), there aretwo types of work environment: physical environment of work and non-physical environment of work. The physical environment of work is all physical conditions surrounding the workplace and can influence employees. While the non-physicalenvironment of work is a pleasant environment of work creating a harmony in working relationship among employees and superiors so as to lead to satisfaction at work. Thus, the physical environment of work is a physical condition related to organizational facilities that can influence employees. While non-physical environment of work is the situation withina workplace that can be felt by employees.

Definition of Motivation

Each individual activity is related to various motives that encourage him to carry out certain activities. Motive is the impetus that arises from within a person to do something. Providing motivation to employees is the obligation of the leadership, so that employees further increase the volume and quality of their work. Steers and Porter (2015) argue that work motivation is an effort that can generate behavior, direct behavior, and maintain behavior that is appropriate to the work environment. Meanwhile, according to Moorhead (2013) motivation is a series of forces that drive people to act in a certain way. Thus, motivation is the existence of driving force creating one’s excitement to work effectively. When a person’s needs are fulfilled by the organization, it creates a strong motivation to work. There are several dimensions and indicators of motivation according to McCeland (Robbins & Judge, 2015): (1) need for achievement which consists of indicators: the need to increase ability, the need for achievement and the need to work effectively and efficiently; (2) need for affiliation which consists of indicators: the need to be accepted, the need to establish relationships with colleagues, and the need to participate and cooperate; (3) need for power which consists of indicators: the need to have influence, the need for power and responsibility, and the need to lead.

Work Discipline

Work discipline is required to help organizational activities runs moothly  so that organizational goals can be optimally reached. According to Rivai and Sagala (2013) work discipline is a means applied by managers in communicating with employees, which makes them willing to change behavior and as an attempt to increase employees’ willingness to obey all rules and social norms that apply in the company. Meanwhile, according to Siagian (2014) that employee discipline in the perspective of human resource management departs from the view that no human is perfect while pursuing his work career. Therefore, discipline for employee is a form of employee training that aims to improve and shape, attitudes behavior and knowledge so that they may voluntarily work according to the rules. Discipline is a form of obedience to written and unwritten rules. Discipline of work is basically always hoped to characterize every human resource in an organization so that the organization operate smoothly and facilitate the achievement of organizational goals effectively (Setiyawan and Waridin, 2006). Without good employee discipline, the organization will have difficulty realizing its goals. For this reason, the application of work discipline needs to be accompanied by rules regarding the reward mechanism for those who carry out discipline and sanctions for violations. One of the dimensions used to measure work discipline as Rivai (2013), states that the dimensions for measuring work discipline are: presence, obedience, high level persistence, and work ethics. Meanwhile, according to Sutrisno (2016), discipline of workmay be measured with four dimensions, namely: obedience of time regulations, obedience of company rules, obedience of conductrules at work, and obeying other regulations. Based on several opinions regarding the dimensions of work discipline above, one may conclude that the environment of work can be measured from three dimensions, namely work regulations, norms, and values. In this study the dimension of work discipline will refer to several dimensions, namely: frequency of attendance, compliance to work standards, work regulations and work ethics.

Hypothesis

H1: Situational leadership style significanly influences work discipline.

H2: Work environment significantly influences work discipline.

H3: Motivation significantly influences discipline.

H4: Situational leadership style significantly influences work discipline through motivation.

H5: Work environment significantly influences work discipline through motivation

 RESEARCH METHODS

Research population was civil servants in Bongsal District, Mojokerto Regency, East Java, Indonesia with a total of thirty-five people. Because the number of population is less than one hundred, the research sample took the entire population of  thirty-five people. The operational definitions of  variables are as follows:

1. Situational leadership style (X1) is the leader’s ability to choose a leadership strategy that best suits the situation and conditions of subordinates. Situational leadership indicators include: decision ability, motivational ability, communication ability, subordinate control ability and responsibility.
2. Environment of work (X2) is everything surrounding the employee, and it can influence the implementation of work. Work environment indicators include the physical environment and non-physical environmental factors.
3. Motivation (Z) is the driving force that creates excitement in carrying out work. Motivational indicators include: “need for achievement”,need for affiliation and need for power.
4. Discipline ofwork (Y) is an attitude, behavior, and action that complies with written and unwritten regulations, and will be given sanctions if you commit a violation. Indicators of work discipline include: work quality, work quantity, responsibility, cooperation and initiative.

For data collection methods using questionnaires distributed to respondents. Instrumental measurement of 4 research variables namely: situational leadership (SL), work environment (WE), motivation (M) and work discipline (WD) using a Likert scale with variations in answers: strongagreementgets a score of 5; agree gets a score of 4; do not agree gets a score of 3; do not agree gets a score of 2; and strongly disagree gets a score of 1. The data analysis method uses path analysis with Warp PLS 5 software based on the following considerations: interval scale metric data; there are exogenous and endogenous independent variables for the multiple regression model and intermediary variables for the mediation model and the mediation combined model and multiple regression as well as the complex model.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Evaluation for Measurement Model (Outer Model)

Measurement with PLS SEM model in the outer model is a reflective measurement, because changes in the construct cause changes in its indicators. Outer model testing was conducted to determine the results of  validity and reliability tests. Validity testing was done to determine if the construct met the requirements to continue in research or not. In this validity test, there are two kinds of evaluation that will be carried out. Convergent validity with the indicator reflective model was assessed according to the correlation between the item score and the construct score. The correlation between item scores and construct values is categorized as high if the outer loading value is > 0.7, whereas according to Chin quoted by Ghozali (2014) the outer loading value between 0.5 – 0.6 is considered as sufficient.

Table 1 Convergent Validity Test Results

From table 1 one can know that all outer loading values for each variable indicator are > 0.5 so that they are considered quite valid. So the indicator of each latent variable has a good level of validity and significance because it has a loading value > 0.5 and a significance value < 0.05.

Test of Reliability

The measurement of construct reliability with PLS-SEM, two methods were used: “Cronbach’s Alpha” and “Composite reliability. However, the assessment with Cronbach’s Alpha resulted in a lower value. Therefore, composite reliabilityis recommended to use and the value must be more than 0.7.

Table 2 “Reliability Test Results

From Table 2 one may know Composite Reliability and Cronbach Alpha values at all items show a value of more than 0.7, so one can conclude that all items in each variable are reliable.

Evaluation for Inner Model

The further stage is to evaluatea structural model (inner model) including tests of fitness of model, path coefficients, and R-squared. In the fitness test of model there are three test indices, namely average path coefficient (APC), average R-squared (ARS) and average variance factor (AVIF); APC and ARS criteria is accepted if p-value is < 0.05 and AVIF is < 5 (Sholihin & Ratmono, 2013).

Table 3 Results of Inner Model Test

Table 3 shows  APC with an index of 0.382 and p–value = 0.003. In addition, ARS has an index of 0.791 with a p-value <0.001. Referring to the criteria, APC fulfilles the criteria because it has a p value <0.005. Likewise with the p-value of  ARS, namely p <0.001. AVIF value is fulfilled because deriving to the data, the AVIF value is 3.006 < 3.3. Therefore, the inner model is accepted.

Hypothesis Testing

Hypothesis testing is intended to prove the truth of research allegations by looking at the results of correlations between constructs with path coefficients and their level of significance. The results of hypothesis testing are as follows.

Table 4 Direct Effect Estimation Results

Based on table 4 one can conclude that: (1) situational leadership  significantlyinfluences employees’ work discipline. It is indicated by p value = 0.003 <0.05 and value of coefficient  0.416 is positive. This proves that when situational leadership is optimized it can improve employees’ work discipline; (2) work environment has a significant influence to work discipline. This is shown by p value = 0.018 <0.05 and the coefficient value of 0.319 is positive. This shows that when environment of work is conducive it can improve employees’ work discipline; and (3) motivation has a significant influence to work discipline. This is shown by p value = 0.030 <0.05 and the coefficient value of 0.287 is positive. This means that strong work motivation will be able to improve employees’work discipline. Furthermore, the influence of situational leadership towards employees’ work discipline through motivation proved significant. This is indicated by p value = 0.000 <0.05, and total influence value of 0.545 is positive. This proves when situational leadership is optimized it will be able to improve work motivation and then it has an influenceto employees’work discipline. While influences of work environment to work discipline through motivation proved significant. This is indicated by pvalue = 0.001 <0.05 and whole influence value of 0.445 is positive. This proves that if work environment is conducive,  it will be able to improve work motivation and then it can influelence employee work discipline.

DISCUSSION

Leaders have a central role in managing human resources in the organization, because they have to be able to encourage, direct and control.Thus, subordinates work together effectively to realize organizational goals (Hasibuan, 2013). Every leader has a different leadership style. According to Thoha (2015) that style of leadership is a behavioral norm that is used by someone when he wants to influence others’ behavior Although the leadership style used is often different on every occasion, the leader must have a dominant leadership style to use to direct his subordinates (Yulk, 2010). In the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic, it requires organizations to take policies quickly and precisely, so they need a relevant leadership style to encourage employee discipline in the midst of a new work atmosphere (WFH). The research results shows that role of situationalstyle of leadership has  significantly influenced  employees’ discipline of work. This is indicated by p value = 0.003 <0.05, and coefficient value of 0.416 is positive. In this case, when situational leadership is optimized it will be able to improve employee work discipline. Situational leadership style also influences work discipline through motivation. This is indicated by the p value = 0.000 <0.05, and total effect value of 0.545 is positive. It proves that when situational leadership is optimized, it will be able to increase work motivation and then have an impact on employee work discipline. This is because the leadership style that is oriented towards task behavior and relationship behavior is one of factors determining the level of employees’ discipline in accordance with their respective duties. The results of this study strengthen Kristhina et.al’s research. (2015) that leadership style has a direct influence or through motivation on employee work discipline. Thus, the leader in carrying out his leadership style greatly influences the motivation and level of work discipline of employees, meaning that the more appropriate the leadership style is with the characteristics of the subordinates, the better the motivation and level of employees’work discipline in an institution. In addition to situational leadership style, another variable that can encourage employee motivation and discipline in working WFH is the work environment. The research results show that the work environment influences discipline of work through motivation. This is indicated by p value = 0.001 <0.05 and entire effect value of 0.445 is positive. This shows that if work environment is conducive, it will be able to improve work motivation and then have an impact on employee work discipline. As is known, that  environment of work is one of important variables in shaping employees’ motivation and discipline of work. Referring to Wibowo (2012) environment of work is all conditions surrounding workplace that can affect implementation of work either directly or indirectly. The work environment can be physical or non-physical in a place where humans gather in dynamic situations and conditions. Changes in the work environment at the Ward District Office during the covid 19 pandemic, fundamentally changed from working in an office to working at home accompanied by a drastically changed work implementation system. This change has consequences for work behavior, especially motivation and work discipline because the work environment is not only in the office but also at home. In fact, environment of work is an important factor that creates conditions that are conducive for employees to carry out their duties. During the Covid 19 pandemic, employees need a healthy, safe and comfortable work environment. Comfort at work will have a positive impact on employees in the form of enthusiasm and seriousness in carrying out work. This argument is similar with Arianto’s opinion and Kurniawan (2020) stating environment of work is also one of variables influencing optimal implementation of employees’ duties so that organizational managers need to pay attention.

CONCLUSION

Work discipline is an important variable for improving the quality of public services. Increased employee work discipline can be caused by various variables including situational style of leadership, environment of work and motivation. As an independent variable it is proven that situational leadership, environment of work and motivation has positively and significantlyinfleunced employees’ work discipline. When situational leadership is implemented optimally accompanied by a conducive environment of work and strengthening employee motivation, employees’ discipline of work also increases. Existence of motivation as a variable that mediates the influence of situational leadership and the work environment on discipline ofworkproves to be positive and significant. For this reason, if management at the District Office seeks to improve employee work discipline, this can be done by optimally implementing situational leadership and creating a conducive work environment accompanied by strengthening motivation.

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