Leadership styles and organizational citizenship behavior: a review of literature

In an ever-changing competitive, and global environment, an effective leadership style is vital to achieve success and avoid failure of an organization. Consequently, studies related to leadership are continuously gaining the attention of researchers. The empirical studies demonstrate the impact of several kinds of leadership styles on individual and organizational level performance. Among them, the impact of transformational and transactional leadership styles on employees’ performance is being studied up to date. According to empirical studies, the performance of employees may be in-role and extra-role performance. Where extra-role performance may not be rewarded formally, which may be known as organizational citizenship behavior. Even though organizational citizenship behavior is not rewarded formally, it is necessary to achieve competitive sustainable success. The present study aims to explore the known and unknown terrain of leadership styles and their impact on organizational citizenship behavior. By carefully considering the past studies, the present study identified the gaps in the Sri Lankan context. The suggestions and recommendations for future studies have been proffered at the end of the paper.