Benchmarking leadership styles for organizational learning in Indian context

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to benchmark leadership practices for helping companies to develop systems and process to become a learning organization. Design/methodology/approach: The data are collected from 331 software professionals of an Indian software firm using a questionnaire survey method. The data collected are analyzed using SPSS 15.0 version. Findings: The results indicate that consulting as well as delegating leadership styles are positively but directive as well as supportive leadership styles are negatively related with the processes of organizational learning (OL). The findings of the study also depict consulting as well as delegating style of leadership to significantly impact the processes of OL. Research limitations/implications: The research paper does not sample respondents from across software organizations and future studies may investigate this further. Nevertheless, the implication of the findings is that OL is largely dependent on consulting as well as delegating style of leadership in Indian software firms. Originality/value: This paper may be useful for existing multinational companies (MNCs) and non-MNCs in India as well as for those foreign MNCs which intend to expand their businesses in this part of the world. It will also help academicians to understand and benchmark leadership styles for OL processes in the firms in India.