Leadership Dynamics in a Hybrid Civil - Military Institution: Examining Social Exchange and Employee Performance in Malaysia’s Ministry of Defense

This study examines the impact of leadership styles on employee performance and job satisfaction in the Ministry of Defense, Malaysia (MINDEF). It was focused on transformational, transactional and authoritarian leadership styles within a hierarchical public sector context that has been guided by Social Exchange Theory (SET). It was applied using a self-administered questionnaire and distributed to all levels of MINDEF employees through convenience sampling by a quantitative research design. In order to analyze all the data, descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression techniques were used. The result indicated that transformational leadership has positive influences on both employee performance and job satisfaction, while transactional leadership indicates a moderate beneficial influence particularly on performance outcomes. In contrast, authoritarian leadership is found to have a negative impact on employee performance and job satisfaction. The study contributes to the limited empirical literature on leadership in Malaysia’s defense sector and provides practical implications for leadership development and management practices aimed at enhancing employee effectiveness and well- being

Leadership Styles, Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Authoritarian Leadership, Employee Performance, Job Satisfaction, Ministry of Defence, Malaysia

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