The Leadership Style and the Productiveness of Employees in the Banking Sector in Slovakia

The main goal of the article was to prove a relationship between applied leadership style of branch managers and productiveness of bank sales clerks and room for their productiveness improvement applicable in the banking sector in Slovakia. One part of the objective was to examine the continuity between applied leadership style of branch managers and their time in control functions held. Dependencies between the individual productiveness of bank sales clerks and the level of their loyalty and satisfaction were investigated. Opinions of branch managers about the applicable leadership style and room for sales clerks’ productiveness improvement were examined through two questionnaire surveys (conducted in 2008 and 2012). The research results confirmed that the directive style of leadership is the mandatory style in the banking sector in Slovakia whereas the intensity of its implementation during the analysis period was increased. The research has also shown that there is a direct connection between the dominant style of leadership and room for improvement of sales clerks’ productiveness, because the growth of the intensity of directive style in this case led to lower productiveness of the average bank sales clerks. Our assumption that the applied leadership style of bank employees depends on time working in managerial positions has not been confirmed. In comparison to long-term managers, branch managers who were working for rather short period in any managerial positions did not show any differences in their management priorities. The assumption that the employee satisfaction and loyalty significantly encourage individual employee productiveness was not confirmed in the research.


INTRODUCTION
The position of companies and business activities is difficult in nowadays' dynamic and variable world.Requirements of the market are top efficiency, optimal adaptation and perspective.The performance of a company becomes currently a very topical theme.Its content includes all corporate activities that need to be cohered to get a result with a functional and prosperous company with a long term perspective.(Pavelková, Knápková, 2005) According to Synek (2006), human resource management is the one of the key company activities and its purpose is to lead employees to high productiveness, affect their quality and structure of their job corresponding to increasing demands of the market business environment.Veber (2011) represents leadership as community mobilization, initiation and motivation of executives' involvement and their development.In the current period, banks are in the center of attention.According to the public general, the most significant part of crisis origination is attributed to banks.On the basis of global crisis im-pacts, regulatory authorities gradually tighten the banking regulation (Zimková, 2010, Cipovová, Belás, 2011, Belás 2010).European politicians discuss about need to regulate the bank managers' income and additional taxation of banks.At the same time, conditions for the credit risk management of the banking sector are getting worse because of the adverse economic development.These factors create an enormous pressure on the performance of the banking sector and can cause a decline in firms and households financing, which may have a negative effect on the economic growth (Bučková, Reuse, 2011).Croxford (2005) emphasizes the important role of the bank's employees in the process of selling bank products for the retail segment.According to him, bank sales clerks are one of elements, which customers see in the bank and can strongly influence their opinion.Bank employees have the primary opportunity to increase the value of customer relationships.Author emphasizes also that bank employees need quality management.In these continuities, it is necessary and appropriate to examine potential opportunities to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the banking sector by increasing the quality of human resource management.In this context, leadership style in the company plays a decisive role.In the article, managerial priorities of branch managers is examined, the prevailing leadership style in the banking sector of Slovakia is defined and an impact of leadership style of bank's sales clerks on the possibility of improvement of their individual productiveness.

THEORETICAL RESOURCES
According to Heskett (1994), in terms of new economics of services, it is applied that the profit and company growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty, which is immediately formed by their satisfaction.Customer satisfaction is determined by service quality, which is generated by satisfied, loyal and productive employees (service-profit chain effect).Service-profit chain effect has been demonstrated by many authors such as (Gelade a Young, 2005, Kamakura a kol., 2012, Saura a kol., 2005).Classon a Dahlstrőm (2006) introduced a new methodological concept where the Service-profit, Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Total Product Concept chain is integrated and different approaches to CSR and its potential relationship to financial performance are demonstrated.Emery and Barker (2007) examined effect of transactional and transformational leadership on the organizational commitment and job satisfaction of customer contact personnel in banking.The results indicate that the transformational factors of charisma, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration are more highly correlated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment than the transactional factors of contingency reward and management-by-exception.The main motivational factor of the transactional leadership is a development and application of methods and conditions which are mainly focused on fulfillment of working tasks, corporate job evaluation and penalty system to significantly affect employee productiveness.Transformational leadership style is motivated employees by company visions and moral values.Those managers who apply this kind of leadership style, are often relocated more responsibilities and autonomy on their employees and give them perceive that someone is interested in their needs.According to authors, intellectual stimulation was the only factor that significantly predicted job satisfaction.Transformational leadership is more predictive of individual and group performance.
Yee, Yeung a Cheng (2010) investigated the dependence between individual elements of the serviceprofit chain.According to results of the research, tightness correlation between employee and customer loyalty, which significantly determines the profitability of the company, is high.Wang, Shieh a Tang (2010) showed that charismatic, transformational and visionary of the leadership style are positively related to the organizational performance.Walker, Smither a Waldman (2008) indicated that the importance of achieving superior levels of customer satisfaction is especially in the retail banking industry.The reason is the fact that all banks provide same products and financial services in order to compete and survive and it is the quality of service which may favor the individual banks in a competition.Authors state that through positive changes in leadership and service climate, it might be expected to see positive changes in the service performance of individual employees.Human resource management plays an essential role in the management of the company.This area is concerned with a number of publications (Armstong, 2007), (Ulrich, 2009), (Gabčanová, 2012).Majtán (2005) defines the leadership as the ability of managers to persuade others to enthusiastically pursue the objectives set.He defines three basic leadership styles based on level of leadership skills: directive style, liberal and participative style.The prescriptive style is characterized by the application of the manager's will regardless of the subordinates' opinions.The participative style is characterized by a bi-directional communication between a leader and subordinates.The liberal leadership style lets a great deal of freedom in the proceedings of employees, so they are very independent.The applied leadership style significantly affects the employees' productiveness in their jobs.Individual employee motivation is largely dependent on the style of management and leadership, which is applied in the job process.Caliscan (2010) analyzes human resources as a source of competitive advantage of companies and defines benefits of strategic human resource management.According to author, financial performance of a company depends on an operating performance, which represents a function of personnel, processes and technology.Properly applied human resource management tools typically cause positive results on job satisfaction and staff motivation to achieve the bank goals (Belás, 2008), (Rynes, 2004).In relation to the financial performance of the company, it is important to create conditions for employee satisfaction because their dissatisfaction leads to a loss of interest in job (frequent absence) and to a loss of interest in the company (high turnover rate) (Wagnerová, 2008).Managers are expected to be able to lead the employees to apply their knowledge to gain and retain the loyalty of employees to the company's management to openly communicate with people and pay attention to the feedback.In this context, the leave of skilled people from the firm may be seen as an irreplaceable loss of competitive advantage of the company.(Kocianová, 2012) The service quality is significantly affected by the level of staff's quality in the company.Its importance grows if we realize that good staff can eliminate weaknesses, respectively, missing elements in the other marketing mix variables.Otherwise, poor staff can relatively "successfully" destroy all benefits of well-adjusted parameters of the marketing mix in a financial institution (Korauš, 2007).Model quality EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) is based on the assumption that the leadership is a driving power of policy and strategy of people management, resources and processes that lead to achieve perfect results of a company in the business.(Kocianová, 2012) Singh, Nadim, Ezzedeen (2012) examine attributes of "a good" and "a bad" leader, qualities of a leader, and his perception of the gender issue (male or female).The essential leadership style characteristics for the best leader were: empowering, knowledgeable, inspirational, developmental, visionary, self-assured, decisive and rewarding.Characteristics of "bad" leader were: manipulative, selfish, dishonest, unapproachable, condescending.
In this context, it is clear that the style of leadership in the company is an important element in the competitiveness growth and business performance.The importance of the optimal forms of leadership is growing in the moment where we realize that these elements present low-cost investments for the future company's performance.

OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY
On the basis of a theoretical analysis and our own research, the main objective of the article was to prove a relationship between applied leadership style of branch managers and productiveness of sales clerks and room for their productiveness improvement applicable in the banking sector in Slovakia and change these attitudes during the crisis.One part of the objective was to examine the continuity between applied leadership style of branch managers and their time in a control functions held.Dependencies between individual productiveness of bank's sales clerks and the level of their loyalty and satisfaction have been investigated.The questionnaire survey has been conducted for the first time in 2008 (before the financial crisis has started) and then in 2012.Our respondents were branch managers and bank's sales clerks who work in banks in Slovakia.The investigated research has been consisted of two questionnaires in 2008 and two questionnaires in 2012.Survey results from 2012 have been verified through structured and informal interviews.By processing of this article, four hypotheses have been set: H1.The prevailing style of leadership style of bank's sales clerks is the directive style of leadership.In 2012 the index of directive style has increased of 10 % in comparison with 2008 H2.The directive leadership style causes significant lack of productiveness.Index of lacks in productiveness has been increased of 10 % H3.The leadership style depends on the period of time in managerial functions.

H4. Individual productiveness of sales clerks depends on their loyalty and satisfaction
Opinions of branch managers have been surveyed through first questionnaire.In accordance with the basic classification of leadership style by Majtán (2005), specific questions have been formulated in the questionnaire.According to responses of branch managers, individual managerial styles have been quantified.Questionnaire survey has been carried out in 2008 on a sample of 34 respondents.In 2012, questionnaire has been repeated on a sample of 37 branch managers.
Second questionnaire, which was designed for bank's sales clerks, surveyed their room for productiveness's improvement.We asked sales clerks, how much they would increase their productiveness in the case of improved human resource management of branch managers.The productiveness of sales clerks is perceived as the ability to sell bank products.The room for productiveness's improvement means the fact that sales clerks subjectively perceive the opportunity to sell more bank products.Questionnaire survey in 2008 has been conducted on a sample of 49 bank's sales clerks.
In 2012, research has been carried out on a sample of 116 bank's sales clerks.Subject of our research is considered to be a professional confidentiality for all banks worldwide and therefore banks are unwilling to provide requested information to official channels.The information which has been gained by relatively small number of respondents was obtained informal way during different training events for employees of the banking sector.
Questionnaire was anonymous and respondents could answer truthfully without any sanctions imposed.
Within the research in 2012, structured interviews with 13 bank managers and informal interviews with 35 bank's sales clerks has been conducted.Bank managers had to occupy the position of branch's directors.These interviews have been conducted at the basis of author's personal contacts with bank employees.
Methodology of research has allowed to explore changes of managerial priorities including leadership style by branch managers also and changes of the assessment of salesclerks' productiveness improvement during the crisis.
We examined the overall change of structure results in the tables via Pearson statistics χ 2 for testing the conformity of the structure proportions.Due to the failure of asymptotic requirements for this test there was done a series of 5000 Monte Carlo replications of the original data.
We tested the overall change in the structure of the table through the P-values.We consider that the value from 2008 is expected and from 2012 as real one.P-value less than 5% leads to a rejection of the null hypothesis, which states that the data have the same structure.Research results from 2008 lines in the table (partial change of attitudes) were compared with results from 2012 through the test of conformity of two shares.The null hypothesis for the test to allow comparison of units of two two-cathegory basic files was H 0 : p 1 =p 2 .If this hypothesis is correct, then p 1 -p 2 = 0 and thus normalized random variable in the assertion of difference between two independent sample units is: where p stands for the common value p 1 and p 2 .If the value of the test criterion is higher than the critical value, the null hypothesis was rejected.That is, a statistically significant difference between responses to the questionnaire questions has been demonstrated.Calculations have been performed in the XLStatistics.The main output was so called P-value.The null hypothesis H0 has been rejected if the achieved minimum level of significance was less than the desired level of significance, ie less than = 0.05.The result of P-value was determined by a relatively small number of observations.The Index of directive leadership style is the ratio of directive branch managers to the total number of managers.Index of productiveness improvement of salesclerks in the bank represents the number of salesclerks who feel their own productiveness improvement to the total number of respondents.

RESULTS
Branch managers' priorities in banking business management are presented in Table 1.
Tab The branch managers have considered the fact that in 2012 the customer relationship management is the most important activity in banking business management, while in 2008 it was personnel management.Despite the perceived trend it can be said, that certain level of customer orientation in bank products management remains low.
Value of χ2 and p-value showed a change in the structure of overall results, which means that the general managers' attitudes have changed during the crisis.Partial changes of attitudes present Ic which monitored a significant change in attitudes of bank managers in line 3.In other lines, these attitudes showed low intensity, which is confirmed by the amount of P-value.Priorities of bank managers to manage performance of their own department are listed in Table 2. Priorities of branch managers in performance management of their own departments are shown in In 2012 (as in 2008), the branch managers considered as a fundamental priority in performance management of their own departments to achieve planned economic interest with the proviso that an adequate level of customer satisfaction is kept.
The overall change in the pattern of results demonstrates the value of χ2 and p-value.Ic presents a partial change of attitudes.This Index saw the major changes in attitudes of bank managers in line 1 and 3, which means that the proportion of managers who are focused on achieving maximum profit has significantly increased.The number (at the same rate) of those who in the performance management of their department think in longer terms has decreased.P-value has not confirmed partial changes in the attitudes.
Leadership style of employees in the banking sector of Slovakia has been determined by two questions.Results of the survey are shown in Table 3 and Table 4 In 2012, sales clerks reported substantial low productiveness.In comparison with 2008, the number of sales clerks has increased by 17% and the number of those respondents who've reported lack of the productiveness at least 20 %, have also significantly increased.
The overall change in the pattern of results demonstrated the value of χ2 and p-value.Partial changes in attitudes represents P-value in the first line in the Table 5 and Ic, which recorded the highest value among respondents who indicated lack in their productiveness at least 20%.Development of leadership style of sales clerks and their productiveness improvements is illustrated in Table 6.
Tab. 6: Development of leadership style and the lacks in their productiveness in relation to their job satisfaction and acceptance of customer needs.Source: own source Index 2012 2008 Ic 1. Index of directive leadership style (Idl) 0,77 0,61 0,262 2. Index of productivity's reserves of salesclerks (Ipr) 0,78 0,61 0,279 Results of the questionnaire survey have revealed interesting trends which have been occurred during the crisis.The directive leadership style of bank's sales clerks has been strengthened in Slovak banking sector during the crisis.In this same time period, the number of sales clerks who feel significant lacks in their productiveness has increased.Index of both parameters' changes is the same.The obtained results have been verified through structured interviews with 13 branch managers who have occupied middle level management and through informal interviews with 35 bank's sales clerks.8 branch managers agreed with the opinion that the prevailing leadership style is directive one, and 5 of branch managers have expressed the opposite opinion.Within the informal responses, 29 of sales clerks have confirmed that the prevailing leadership style is directive one and 6 of sales clerks said another answer.From the total number of 35 of sales clerks, 26 of respondents have admitted lacks in their productiveness and only 9 of them said that they their productiveness is high.

DISCUSSION
Research results have been suggested a relationship between leadership style and employees' productiveness.The predominant style of leadership in the banking sector Slovakia is a directive approach.In this context, research findings are compatible with Wagnerová (2008).
Because of the prevailing style of a directive leadership, bank's sales clerks indicate significant lacks in their productiveness.Up to 78% of sales clerks stated in the survey that they would be able to increase their own productiveness in case of better treatment from managers.It is surprising, that almost 30% of respondents indicated 30% of lacks in their productiveness.If these results were generally valid, the impact on the productiveness of the banking sector would be substantial.If we assume, that number of sales clerks in the banking sector of Slovakia is around 12,900 (70% of the total number of employees in the banking sector) and their average annual gross income, including contributions amounts represents 10,140 Euros (monthly costs per an employee are considered to be 850 EUR) and there is an option to save 21.58 % of labor costs (that is a weighted average of the lack in the productiveness in this study), then the overall impact on the performance of the banking sector is around 28 million EUR per year.That represents about 5% of the net profit of the banking sector in Slovakia in 2011.
Results of this study have a limited validity, however, they can be inspiring and challenging for bank management.These results represent an interesting option of perspective possibility of commercial banks improvement, if a bank would be able to transform this lower productiveness into higher sales volume.In banking practice there are also some contradictory opinions and trends.Some banks knowingly employ new workers, because they assume that their wage claims will be lower and their leave from the bank will take precedence over a salary increase.
In the research, we investigated the relationship between the applied style of leadership and managerial experiences (number of years in management).The relationship between the number of years in management functions and the applied style of leadership has not been approved, because from the total number of directive branch managers there were 33% in the management from 1 to 3 years, 22% of them carried managerial function out from 4 to 6 years and 44% worked in managerial functions for more than 6 years.An interesting research question was examining sales clerks' loyalty and satisfaction in relation to their individual productiveness.We assumed that a loyal and satisfied bank's sales clerks will indicate lower lacks in their productiveness, because he transformed these feeling into his higher productiveness improvements.Employees who clearly expressed their satisfaction in the bank did not demonstrate any significantly lacks in their productiveness.Out of total number of such employees, only 34% of them claimed they could not improve their own productiveness, because they worked very hard.This difference is minimal compared to results for the whole set, where 22% of employees presented the same attitude.Employees who were proud of their bank introduced similar lacks in their productiveness.A minimal productiveness growth of 10% stated 34% of respondents, an increase of productiveness growth of 20 % reported 33% of respondents and a potential productiveness increase of 30% also reported 33% of respondents.This means that this assumption has not been confirmed.We can agree with the conclusions of Wagnerová (2008), who states that employee satisfaction does not necessarily mean good productiveness.
And the employee with high productiveness does not necessarily have to be satisfied employee.
The employee dissatisfaction, however, is strongly reflected in his absences and fluctuations.The challenge for management is to create conditions for the stabilization of the employees' productiveness.One of the effective methods is, according to the author, a considerate and participative management.On the other hand, many empirical studies (eg.Babakus et al., 2003, Maddern et al., 2007, Melton and Hartline, 2010, Yee et al., 2010) indicate that the employee satisfaction transforms into the higher quality of services, through which customers are more satisfied, and business performance is getting higher also.Kocianová (2012) presents the view that participatory approach for KPI (Key Performance Indicators) implementation decreases the rate of fluctuations and increases job satisfaction, which clients will definitely appreciate because the firm makes a stable impression and it is profitable for them to deal with one person who has enough information about his business on a long-term basis.
Unofficial results about fluctuation of bank employees in Slovakia claim a relatively high turnover rate (about 15-20%).In this context it is clear, that many banks cannot build long-term relationships with clients, which is a prerequisite for active selling of bank products.Some experiences from the banking environment are unusual, for example in one branch of a major bank in Slovakia a branch manager has been changed four times in two years.In another branch of a major Slovak bank, the entire staff has been completely changed after its privatization within 1 year.

CONCLUSION
Research results confirming our hypothesis No. 1, 2, hypothesis No. 3 and 4 have been rejected.
The directive style of leadership is still prescriptive style in the banking sector in Slovakia, and its intensity has increased during the analyzed period.The research has also shown that there is a direct connection between the dominant style of a leadership and lacks in the productiveness.
In 2012 compared to 2008, the number of branch managers who prefer directive leadership style has increased up to 16 %.The ratio of directive leadership style of branch managers on the total amount of branch managers represents 77 %.During the reporting period, Index of lacks in productiveness of sales clerks has been increased by 17 %.78 % of sales clerks indicated some lacks in their productiveness, that's mean that they would be able sell more banking products if there would be the case of improved personnel management.The weighted average of productiveness represented 21,58 %.The value of the Index of directive leadership style has been increased by 0,262 in the analyzed period.This increased value has been accompanied by the growth of lack in productiveness (index of lacks in productiveness) by 0,279.It follows that growing numbers of directive branch managers have caused growing number of bank's sales clerks who feel lower productiveness in their jobs.The directive leadership style cannot set up and maintain an optimal productiveness of employees because it fails to motivate the major factor in business performance and cause a low level of job satisfaction and lack of interest in the company.One of the most important and cost-efficient options to increase financial performance of the commercial bank in Slovakia is to improve a care bank's sales clerk.
Our assumption that the applied leadership style depends on the time of working in managerial functions has not been confirmed.Managers who operate relatively shortly in managerial func-tions did not show any differences in their management priorities and approaches in comparison with long-time managers.
The assumption that the employee satisfaction and loyalty significantly encourage individual employee productiveness has been rejected in the research.Research results support the earlier thoughts that the employee dissatisfaction leads to lower rates of acceptance of customer needs in the sales process and a higher rate of fluctuation.The research has been focused on the exclusive area of banking management, which concentrates on the subject of professional confidentiality covered in the commercial banking.Thus focused research hasn't yet appeared in foreign and domestic publications and other sources.Therefore, relatively low number of respondents is affected.So, achieved results have been verified through structured interviews with 13 managers occupying middle management and through informal interviews with 35 bank's sales clerks.Results from these interviews have confirmed results from questionnaire research.Despite the relatively small sample of respondents, we believe that this research has produced some interesting findings in the area of leadership in relation to the potential performance and competitiveness of the companies and can serve as a certain inspiration for improving human resource management tools in the commercial banking.

For
better illustration, changes in individual indicators during the crisis have been calculated by the Index of change (it demonstrates the ratio of the indicator's change in % / a status indicator in% in 2008).The value of the Index of change (Ic) in the interval (0, 0.200) demonstrates a zone of low intensity change, the interval (0.201, 0.500) represents moderate intensity change and the interval (0.501, above) constitutes high intensity change of the index.The positive value of the index means a growth and the minus value indicates a decrease of the indicator value.Development trends in leadership style and staff's productiveness improvement have been explored in relation with the development of job satisfaction and acceptance of customer needs through appropriate indexes.

Table 2 .
Tab. 2: Priorities of branch managers in performance management of their own department.
.Responses in 2012 have showed that clearly prevailed leadership style is the directive one because 60 % of respondents reported No. 1 response and 18 % of respondents reported No. 4. The sum of responses which represents the directive leadership style is 78 % (in 2008 the sum of these responses were 67 %).The liberal leadership style represents response No. 2 (with 7%).The participative leadership style is characterized by response No. 3 (with 15 %).Statistical indicators of χ2 and p-values showed that there was no overall change in the attitudes of bank managers.A partial change of the attitudes presents Ic index, which reached the highest value at line 2 (the number of managers with a liberal leadership style is significantly decreased).P-value has not confirmed any partial changes of the attitude.Results of the research for 2012 have confirmed the directive leadership style, because the sum of response No.1, 3 and 4 responses clearly dominates (77%).The sum of the same responses in 2008 was 61%.These results are consistent with survey results, which are listed in Table3(dominance of directive leadership style and growth of its intensity during the crisis).The overall change in the pattern of results demonstrated the value of χ2 and p-value.Ic, which presents partial changes in attitudes, noted significant changes in attitudes in the 3rd and 4th line of the table.P-value has not confirmed partial changes in attitudes.One part of the research was also to identify low productiveness improvements of sales clerks in the bank.Answers of sales clerks are listed in Table5.Tab.5: Potential possibilities of growth of productiveness improvements of bank's sales clerks.Source: own source.