ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE , EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION , PERCEIVED LEADER EMOTIONAL COMPETENCY AND PERSONALITY TYPE : AN EXPLORATORY STUDY IN A SOUTH AFRICAN ENGINEERING COMPANY 20

The purpose of this study was to investigate employees’ experiences of their organisation’s culture and general satisfaction levels and to explore whether potential explanations for these could be derived from measures of the perceived emotional competency and dominant personality type of senior management as aspects of their predominant leadership style. The South African Culture Instrument (SACI), an employee Satisfaction Survey questionnaire and the 360 Degree Emotional Competency Profiler (ECP) were administered to a sample of 181 (SACI), 170 (Employee Satisfaction Survey questionnaire) and 88 (ECP) volunteer employees of a South African engineering company. All nine senior directors voluntary participated in completing the MBTI, Form G. The results indicated significant differences between the various biographical groups regarding the measured dimensions. The eCP and MBTI results showed the affective and social aspects of leadership behaviour to be a development area for senior management. This study makes an important contribution to the expanding body of knowledge that focuses on the evaluation of organisational factors and leader attributes that influence the motivation, commitment and satisfaction of employees in South African organisations.

In an increasingly competitive and turbulent business environment the effective resourcing, management and retention of human capital remain crucial factors of organisational survival, adaptation and competitive advantage (Michaels, Hardfield-Jones & Axelrod, 2001;Robinson, 2006).Managing retention and keeping labour turnover to target (particularly with regard to core employees or knowledge workers) has become a key strategic issue for organisations (Dö ckel, Basson & Coetzee, 2006).In this regard it is widely recognised that the satisfaction level of these employees is a critical part of attracting and retaining them (Lawler & Finegold, 2000;Pollitt, 2005;Robinson, 2006).Buckingham (2001) states that when such employees leave the organisation loses an essential element of human capital and this loss may be compounded if they join a competitor.These demands on organisations have led to a renewed interest in employee attitude surveys in an attempt to establish why people leave and what may be done to retain them (Pollitt, 2005;Robinson, 2006).In agreement with this, Rollinson (2005) states that the attention given to organisational culture and employee satisfaction surveys as a means of predicting employees' commitment to and satisfaction with the company is one of the most prominent trends in organisations today.
Another prominent current trend in organisations is the focus on the leadership ability, preferred style and competence of senior managers, because of the growing evidence regarding the influence of leaders' personality traits, emotional intelligence and leadership competencies on the productivity, satisfaction and general experiences of employees' quality of worklife (Carmeli, 2003;Kotze, 2004;McMurray, 2003;Whetton & Cameron, 2002).Research indicates that not only do leaders' values and behaviour shape organisational culture but their preferred approach to the management of their subordinates also helps to form the organisation culture (Martin, 2005;McMurray, 2003).Moreover, high emotional intelligence is increasingly being regarded as a key component of effective management skills and a necessity for attaining sustainable results (Carmeli, 2003;Salovey & Mayer, 1990).Research findings by Carmeli (2003) which indicate a direct and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and withdrawal intentions from the organisation emphasise the important role that managers' emotional intelligence may have in retaining valuable organisation members.Furthermore, research also indicates a link between leaders' emotional competence and their preferred personality type (Coetzee, Martins, Basson & Muller, 2006;Higgs, 2001).According to Myers, McCaulley, Quenk and Hammer (2003), personality type can be useful in analysing leaders' preferred styles as a significant characteristic of organisational culture.
Against this background, this research firstly sets out to investigate employees' experiences of their organisation's culture and their general satisfaction levels.Secondly, the research aims to explore the perceived emotional competency and dominant personality type (as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) of senior management as a measure of managers' leadership style from which potential explanations for employees' satisfaction levels and experiences of the organisation's culture can be derived.The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a well-known and well-respected instrument for providing valuable information on how to understand leaders' behavioural dynamics and how these influence organisational culture (Coetzee et al, 2006;Myers et al, 2003).The findings may prove to be useful for industrial and organisational psychologists, organisation development practitioners and human resource practitioners in understanding the variables that influence employees' satisfaction and experiences of their company's organisational culture.The findings may also help to explain why various biographical groups within a company vary or differ in their experiences of the company.Such an understanding will help to inform employment and retention strategies and leader development initiatives in the South African organisational context.

Organisational culture
Researchers have formulated various definitions of organisational culture.Some definitions focus on elements such as assumptions, beliefs and values, others expand the concept to include the way things are done, norms, behaviours and artefacts.For the purpose of this research organisational culture is regarded as an integrated pattern of human behaviour, which is unique to a particular organisation and which originated as a result of the organisation's survival process and integration with its environment.As culture directs the organisation to goal attainment, newly appointed employees must be taught the correct way of behaving (Martins, 1989:15).
Various researchers have emphasised the importance of organisational culture.According to Ivancevich, Konopaske and Matteson (2005), organisational culture influences employees to be good citizens and to "go along", the rationale being that a strong culture provides shared values that ensure that everyone in the organisation is on the same track.Culture enhances organisational commitment and increases the consistency of employee behaviour (Martins & Martins, 2003).Various researchers report findings which indicate organisational culture as a force that influences both employee behaviour and the success of a company (Davidson, 2004;Denison, 1990;Denison & Mishra, 1995).In this regard, Pollitt (2005) reports research findings that indicate organisational culture as the strongest strategic lever in creating an engaged and committed workforce.
Corporate culture is something that is not static and although difficult to change, can be made more performance enhancing by investigating its characteristics (Kotter & Heskett, 1992;Smit & Cronje, 1997).Organisational culture provides the underlying values, beliefs and principles that serve as a foundation for an organisation's management system, as well as the set of management practices and behaviours that both exemplify and reinforce those basic principles.These principles and practices endure because they have meaning for the members of an organisation (Denison, 1990).A formal measurement of organisational management practices by means of culture surveys help employees to describe their experiences of the organisational culture (McMurray, 2003).Organisational practices are regarded as the core elements that characterise the organisation's culture and generally include the following four major dimensions and sub-elements (eskildsen & Dahlgaard, 2000;Martins & Martins, 2002): Policy and strategy l The vision and mission determine employees' understanding of the vision, mission and values of the organisation and how these can be transformed into measurable team goals and objectives.l The external environment determines the degree of focus on external and internal customers and also employees' perceptions of the effectiveness of the community involvement via corporate social investment strategies.l The means to achieve objectives determine the way in which organisational structure and support mechanisms contribute to the organisation's effectiveness.l The organisation's image focuses on whether the outside world regards it as a sought-after employer.

Management processes
l Management processes focus on the way in which management processes take place in the organisation -such processes include people management, decision-making, goal formulation, innovation processes, managing change, control processes and communication.

People
l employee needs and objectives focus on employees' perceptions of the integration of their needs and objectives with those of the organisation, work/life balance and physical work environment.
l Interpersonal relationships focus on the relationship between managers and personnel, particularly in terms of the management of conflict, diversity and interdepartmental relations.

Leadership
l Leadership focuses on specific areas that strengthen leadership, as perceived by employees.
The people and leadership elements are regarded as forming part of the informal organisation that exerts a significant influence on employee behaviour.A lack of congruence between employee and organisational values, goals, relationships and behavioural norms may well undermine broader organisational initiatives (Robinson, 2006).People are unpredictable and have diverse needs, attitudes and motivations, and the informal organisation can serve to satisfy the social and psychological needs of employees.employee preferences as to how they wish to be managed and how they experience the dominant leadership style also influence the way that culture develops (Martin, 2005;McMurray, 2003) In this regard, although organisational culture appears to have common properties, researchers emphasise evidence of the existence of dominant cultures and a number of subcultures in most large organisations (Robbins, 2005;Deal & Kennedy, 1982;Kotter & Heskett, 1992).Research by Harris and Ogbonna (1997) indicates that employees at different levels in an organisational hierarchy have different views of organisational culture.According to Martins and von der Ohe (2006), variables such as departmental groupings, geographical distribution, occupational categories, race, gender and age groups including the influence and style of the manager all play a role in the formation of sub-cultures.A core focus of this study was therefore to investigate how the various biographical groups that participated in this study varied in terms of their experiences of the organisation.

EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION
employee satisfaction is described as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an employee's appraisal of his or her company environment or company experience (Rollinson, 2005).employee satisfaction is closely related to job satisfaction and the intention to leave or stay with the organisation (Robinson, 2006).There is convincing evidence that where job satisfaction is high labour turnover is reduced (Aamodt, 2007;Tett & Meyer, 1993).Job satisfaction is therefore probably one of those experiences of work that make it less likely that an employee will think about leaving even if there are available opportunities.However, if job satisfaction is absent and there are other opportunities, turnover could well increase.
Employee satisfaction is also closely related to employees' needs and work expectations.Individual motivation, levels of satisfaction and work performance are determined by the comparative strength of needs and expectations of various biographical groups and the extent to which they are met (Aamodt, 2007;Robinson, 2006).Employees' needs and expectations can be related to certain aspects of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and relational motivation.extrinsic motivation relates to valued outcomes, which are external and provided by others such as compensation, promotion, opportunities for learning and growth, praise and recognition.Intrinsic motivation is related to valued outcomes or benefits that come from the individual himself (or herself) such as feelings of satisfaction, wellbeing, quality of work life, supervisor support, competence, selfesteem, accomplishment, respect, fair treatment and being informed (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2004;Kotze, 2004;Robinson, 2006).Relational motivation relates to aspects such as social relationships and friendships, affiliation and group functioning (Robinson 2006) (Kochanski & Ledford, 2001;Mcelroy, 2001).

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
emotional intelligence describes the extent to which individuals are able to tap into their feelings and emotions as a source of energy to guide their thinking and actions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990).The scope of emotional intelligence includes the verbal and nonverbal appraisal and expression of emotion, the regulation of emotion in the self and others, and the utilisation of emotional content in problem solving (Mayer & Salovey, 1993).This ability entails a unique set of competencies described by the so-called mixed models of emotional intelligence (Mandell & Pherwani, 2003;Wolmarans, 2002) and includes, for example, competencies such as the following: l Emotional literacy (individuals' awareness and understanding of their own and other people's emotions); l Self-regard (individuals' assessment of and respect for their own worth as an equal human being); l Self-management (individuals' ability to manage stress and harness energy to create a state of wellness and healthy balance between body, mind and soul); l Self-motivation (individuals' ability to create a challenging vision and set stretching goals; to remain focused and optimistic in spite of setbacks; to take action everyday and remain committed to a cause; and to take responsibility for one's successes and failures); l Change resilience (individuals' ability to remain flexible and open to new ideas and people, advocating the imperative for change and innovation when appropriate, with due concern and consideration for the emotional impact of change on people); l Interpersonal relations (individuals' intuitive understanding of, and deep level of caring and compassion for people; a real concern for their well-being, growth and development, and joy and recognition for their successes); and l Integration of head and heart (individuals' ability to make decisions and solve problems with due consideration of both facts and feelings, and with the commitment to create winwin solutions that serve both the goals and the relationships concerned (Wolmarans & Martins, 2001).
Emotional intelligence develops over a person's life span and individuals' ability to demonstrate emotionally competent behaviour can be enhanced through training (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2005;Locke, 2005).emotional intelligence is regarded as being more important in influencing leaders' job success and performance than traditional general mental intelligence (Goleman, 2001;Kanfer & Kantrowitz, 2002;Wong & Law, 2002).emotionally intelligent leaders are thought to achieve greater overall organisational performance (Carmeli, 2003;Miller, 1999).They appear to be more committed to their organisation, and use positive emotions to envision major improvements in organisational functioning (Palmer, Jansen & Coetzee, 2006).Moreover, emotionally intelligent leaders are thought to use emotions to improve their decision making.They seem to be able to instil a sense of enthusiasm, trust and co-operation within and amongst employees (Stuart & Pauquet, 2001).Collins (2001) found that managers who had higher emotion management skills had subordinates who had higher levels of organisational commitment.

PERSONALITY TYPE
Psychological type theory views differences in personality as being orderly and consistent.These differences are due to basic differences in the way individuals prefer to use their perception and judgement (Siegel, Smith & Mosca, 2001).Perception (P) is the preference that relates to living in a spontaneous and flexible way, with the ability to stay open to new information.Perception in this framework refers to the sensing and intuition mental functions as different ways of attending to and gathering information.Sensors (S) rely on information that is practical and has useful applications.These are oriented in the present and focus on living life as it is.People who prefer intuition (N) pay attention to their insights and look for underlying meanings or relationships.They are future oriented and focus on making changes (Hirsh & Kummerow, 1993).
Judgement (J) involves an orderly planned approach to conclusions about what we perceive.Judgement, in this framework, refers directly to the mental processes of thinking and feeling, which are both rational ways of making decisions and reaching conclusions.To people who prefer thinking (T), it is the logical reasons and consequences that are important in making a decision.On the other hand, to people who prefer feeling (F), that which is of personal value to them and to others is the key in making a decision.While Thinking types have and use values and emotions to decide, these are used only to support their logical conclusions.While Feeling types use logic and reason to decide, these are used only to support their values-based conclusions (Hirsh & Kummerow, 1993).One of the four mental functions (sensing, intuition, thinking, feeling) is dominant within an individual profile, revealing the individual's favoured process.The preferred dominant function forms the core identity and direction for the overall personality (Myers et al, 2003).
According to psychological type theory, people are also energised in two ways.People with a preference for extraversion (E) draw energy from the outer world -people, events, and things in their environment.People with a preference for introversion (I), draw energy from their inner world of ideas, emotions, and impressions (Siegel et al, 2001).Based on these preference descriptions, there are 16 personality types which can be measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

PROBLEM INVESTIGATED
In the light of the aforegoing, this research firstly sets out to investigate employees' experiences of their organisation's culture and their general satisfaction levels.Secondly, the research aims to explore the perceived emotional competency and dominant personality type (as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) of senior management as a measure of managers' leadership style from which potential explanations for employees' satisfaction levels and experiences of the organisation's culture can be derived.Although the research design wasn't aimed at determining causality of employees' experiences of the organisation's culture and their general satisfaction levels, it was assumed that an exploration of the perceived emotional competency and personality type of leaders would provide a measure of illumination for the core findings.Considering the exploratory nature of this study, it was expected that the findings would stimulate further research initiatives concerning the link between leader emotional competency, personality type, organisational culture and employee satisfaction in the South African organisational context.
This project was initiated by the engineering company to determine the reasons for increased turnover over a period of eighteen months after the first survey (organisational culture survey) was undertaken.The time lapse between the organisational culture survey and the employee satisfaction survey was taken into consideration in the interpretation of the results.

Research approach
A survey design was used to achieve the research objective (Shaughnessy & zechmeister, 1997).

Research method Participants
In total, one hundred and eighty one (181) employees from a South African company in the engineering industry participated in the organisational culture survey and, after eight months, one hundred and seventy (170) in the employee Satisfaction Survey.Table 1 provides an overview of the biographical groups that participated in the two surveys.From these results, it can be inferred that the majority of respondents belonged to production, were from the eSP group, with ages ranging between 26 and 35 years and were predominantly white and female.It is important to note that fewer employees participated in the second survey (181 versus 170) and that the "no response" rate is higher in the second survey.
After carefully selecting peers, superiors and subordinates to participate in the 360° degree evaluation process, 88 employees participated in assessing the nine senior managers' emotional competency by means of the 360 Degree emotional Competency Profiler.This evaluation was done electronically: this not only ensured confidentiality of the evaluations but also that the selected evaluators sent back their evaluations.All nine senior directors (of whom eight were white males and 1 was a black male) voluntarily completed the MBTI.

Measuring instruments
Four measuring instruments, namely the South African Culture Instrument (SACI) (Martins, 1989), an Employee Satisfaction Survey questionnaire, the 360 Degree Emotional Competency Profiler (eCP) (Wolmarans & Martins, 2001) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Form G (MBTI) (Myers & McCaulley, 1985) were used in the present study.A biographical questionnaire was used to obtain personal details of the participants.

South African Organisational Culture Instrument (SACI)
The South African Culture Instrument (SACI) has been used since 1989 for various organisational culture studies.The overall reliability (Cronbach Coefficient Alpha) of the SACI was measured at 0.933 and the internal consistency of the dimensions between 0.655 and 0.932 (Martins, Martins & Terblanche, 2004).The questionnaire includes the following 18 dimensions (Martins, 1989;2000) All the items in the culture questionnaire require the respondent to respond on a 5-point Likert scale, where a low rating (1) indicates that the respondents strongly disagree and a high rating (5) that they strongly agree.The questionnaire is then scored for each of the various dimensions.All factors are scored such that a low score indicates non-acceptance of the cultural dimension, while a high score indicates acceptance of the cultural dimension.

Employee Satisfaction Survey
The questionnaire was specifically developed for this organisation after intense interviews and focus groups and therefore included some overlapping dimensions with the SACI.The first phase was to develop themes (dimensions) after which statements were compiled.The questionnaire consists of eleven ( 11) dimensions (communication, compensation, diversity, fairness, job satisfaction, opportunities for growth, performance management, respect for employees, respect for management, teamwork, work/life balance) which measured employees' levels of satisfaction with the organisational culture on a more personal level than the measures of the SACI.The procedure for completion of the employee Satisfaction Survey is exactly the same as described for the SACI.The Cronbach's Alpha Coefficients are portrayed in Table 2.The reliability coefficients range between 0.8562 and 0.9186.A suitable criterion for instruments in the early stages of development is seen to be 0.5 to 0.6 although for established scales it would typically be about 0.7 (Nunnally, 1967).No factor analysis was done owing to the small ratio of participants to the number of statements.

360° Emotional Competency Profiler (ECP)
The ECP was used to determine the participants' current emotional competence.Content validity of the eCP was built into the instrument and tested by developing a construct definition of each emotional competence behavioural cluster.Item analysis indicates that the items in the sub-test clusters possess acceptable internal consistency (Wolmarans & Martins, 2001).Wolmarans and Martins (2001) report the following Cronbach alpha coefficients for the seven sub-scales: Emotional literacy (0.863); Self-esteem/Self-regard (0.872); Self-management (0.851); Self-motivation (0.911); Change resilience (0.933); Interpersonal relations (0.953); and Integration of head/ heart (0.903).The overall reliability of the eCP was reported to be 0.981.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Form G (MBTI)
The well-established MBTI, Form G, was used for this research project to measure the personality preferences of the participants.
The MBTI, Form G, is a self-reporting instrument and consists of three parts.Part I contains 26 items; part II, 45 items and part III, 55 items.Overall, the individual has to respond to 126 items.
The MBTI is a questionnaire-style instrument consisting of items arranged in a forced-choice format.For each item, subjects are provided two responses to choose between.The objective of the MBTI is to classify an individual into one of the 16 personality types (Myers et al, 2003).
While there are different views on many aspects of the validity of the MBTI, there is general agreement on its high levels of face validity (McCrae & Costa, 1988).In presenting reliability results in the MBTI manual, Myers et al. (2003) have examined internal consistencies based on alpha coefficients, none of which are below 0.7 for the MBTI scales.Test-retest reliabilities also show consistency over time.

Procedure
All employees were invited to participate in the organisational culture and employee satisfaction surveys.As far as the eCP is concerned, the non-randomly selected raters of peers, superiors and subordinates were approached by the participating managers who briefed them on the rationale underlying the study.Since the eCP items are self-explanatory, no specific training on the emotional intelligence competencies was provided to the raters.
The process applicable to the completion of the questionnaires was also explained to the raters.upon completion of the questionnaires, feedback was given to the participating managers on their personal results.The questionnaires were scored electronically.

Statistical analysis
The statistical analysis was carried out with the help of the SAS programme (SAS Institute, 2000).Cronbach alpha coefficients were calculated to assess the internal consistency (reliability) of the Employee Satisfaction Survey questionnaire (Clark & Watson, 1995).Regarding the organisational culture survey and employee satisfaction surveys, the analysis of variance and t-test approaches were chosen as appropriate strategies for achieving the objective of the study.The biographical groups such as job levels, gender, race and departments were regarded as the independent variables and the cultural dimensions as the dependent variables.A cut-off point of p<0.05 was set for the interpretation of the statistical significance of the results.
Given the research aim of this study, only descriptive statistics, that is, frequencies, means and standard deviations were calculated and interpreted for the subscales of the eCP.For the purpose of this research only the ratings of employees were used in analyzing and discussing the findings.The subscale item ratings were also statistically ranked from the highest to the lowest mean average scores as rated by the respondents to enhance interpretation of the results.

RESULTS
The first step in the analysis of the data was to explore how the job levels, different departments, race, gender and age groups of the participant sample perceive the respective organisational culture.The results of the analysis of variance for the organisational culture dimensions displayed in Tables 3 to 7 show that the most significant differences between the biographical groups are between the gender (11 dimensions) and job level (14 dimensions) groups, followed by the race (7 dimensions), age (4 dimensions) and departments (2 dimensions).
Overall the results show that employees at the senior job levels and males seem to experience most of the cultural dimensions significantly more positively than the other groups.Closer inspection of the results shows that females, production staff, whites and employees below the age of 35 experienced the organisational structure as significantly less positive than other groups.Females also seem to have significantly more negative perceptions of the organisation's vision and mission, decision-making style, communication processes, and the relations between managers and workers and departments.
As far as job levels are concerned, the support staff seems significantly less positive about leaders'consideration for their needs and objectives and the physical work environment.The production staff indicated significantly more negative responses regarding training and development opportunities and the organisation's client focus.The white employees (who predominated in the sample) view the leadership style also significantly more negative than the black employees.It is interesting to note that the Directors and associates group seems to have significantly less positive experiences regarding work/life balance issues.The second step in the analysis of the data was to explore participants' employee satisfaction levels with regard to their job levels, race, gender, age groups and departments.
The results of the analysis of variance for the employee Satisfaction Survey are shown in Table 8.Tables 9 and 10 give a summary of the key significant findings for the organisational culture and employee satisfaction dimensions respectively.An investigation of the findings show that the age group below 35 years, the production staff and black employees appear to be significantly dissatisfied with their compensation.The corporate department seems to be significantly more dissatisfied with issues such as work/life balance, respect for management, opportunities for growth and fairness.The black employees appear to be significantly more dissatisfied with certain aspects of diversity.The third step in the analysis of the data was to investigate how employees perceive the emotional intelligence competencies of the nine senior directors.Tables 11 to 13 give an overview of the results of the nine managers for their current emotional competency behaviour.An investigation of the results shows that the senior directors were perceived to be particularly competent in demonstrating self-motivation and self-esteem.More specifically, these competencies seem to be reflected in their willingness to take on challenges, remaining committed to a cause in spite of obstacles and remaining focused on their vision and goals for the company.Development areas appear to be their ability to interpret other people's emotions correctly, identif ying underlying emotional causes of conflict, being open to criticism from others and building consensus on common ground.
The final step in the analysis of the data was to determine the dominant personality type of the sample of senior managers who participated in the study.The sample constituted 2 eNTJs, 2 eSTJs, 2 INTJs, 1 INTP, 1 eNFP, and 1 ISTJ as the range of personality types.The extraverted-Judging (eJ) personality preference appears to be the predominant personality type for the sample of participating leaders, followed by the Thinking (T) preference and the Intuitive (N) preference.Figure 1 provides an overview of the key measurements that were done to achieve the objective of this study.

DISCUSSION
In the introduction it was pointed out that organisational culture and employee satisfaction surveys are regarded as an important means of predicting employees' commitment to and satisfaction with the company (Rollinson, 2005).The point was also made that managers' emotional competency and personality attributes have a significant effect on organisational culture and thus employees' intention to withdraw from or stay in the organisation (Carmeli, 2003;Kotze, 2004;McMurray, 2003).The goal of the study was therefore firstly to explore how different biographical groups of employees' experience and feel about their organisation's culture.The second goal of the study was to explore whether employees' perceptions about the senior managers' emotional intelligence competencies and the managers' dominant personality type could provide possible explanations for employees' experiences.
As far as the culture survey is concerned, the results overall indicate that the organisational structure evoked significant less positive experiences from females, whites, production staff and the age group below 35.It appears from the results that the less positive experiences regarding the leadership style, in particular communication, control, and decision making could be probable causes for these experiences.In addition the more negative experiences by females and support staff regarding acknowledgement of diversity, inter departmental relations and the relationship between managers and workers indicate an apparent need for a more emotionally supportive environment.
Research findings on gender differences indicate gender as a moderator in employee attitude research (Kidd & Smewing, 2001;Smith, Smits & Hoy, 1998).Their findings suggest a positive linear relationship between supervisor support and commitment for women in particular.Women also have a greater need for emotionally supportive work environments as a source of career satisfaction (Nabi, 2001).
Overall the employee satisfaction results also suggest that the production staff, black employees and the age group below 35 are more dissatisfied with their compensation.These findings confirm research by Dö ckel et al (2006) which indicates compensation as a significant factor in retaining high technology employees.Research data reported by Keaveny and Inderrieden (2000) further suggest that when a job is more interesting, has greater job security and better benefits and opportunities for advancement than elsewhere in the industry, employees are more satisfied with a given level of compensation.zemke, Raines and Filipczak (2000) suggest management behaviour such as participation in decision making and high quality leadership as more important than compensation in building commitment in younger workers.Campion, Medsker and Higgs (1993) found a positive and significant correlation between employee satisfaction and the presence of communication and cooperation between work groups.Positive and significant correlations were also found between employee satisfaction and workload sharing and between employee satisfaction and social support.
Directors and associates seemed to have unique needs related to interpersonal support.They showed significantly lower levels of satisfaction with regard to opportunities for growth and work/ life balance as intrinsic motivational aspects.These findings suggest a fast-paced environment which could have an adverse impact on participants' long-term job satisfaction and quality of worklife (Kotze, 2004).A study conducted by Burke (2002) also showed that both men and women place high value on organisational values and practices that support work-personal life balance.When these are present, both groups also reported greater joy in work, greater job and career satisfaction, less intention to quit, less job stress, greater family satisfaction and higher levels of emotional wellbeing.
The major cause of dissatisfaction for the black participants seemed to be their experience of management practices related to diversity and being treated fairly.Research findings by Pollitt (2005)   The findings related to the emotional competency of the senior directors who participated in this study overall show that they were perceived to be highly confident, self-motivated and committed in pursuing and achieving the company's vision and goals.In this regard, they appeared to be perceived as being strong in their ability to solve problems and in directing their behaviour in social encounters to achieve personal goals.The affective and social aspects of emotionally intelligent behaviour appeared to be perceived by the participants as an area for development.The affective aspect relates to the self-regulatory and self-management abilities of the managers (which include abilities such as managing stress and creating a state of wellness) and their ability to access, generate, express and regulate their emotions appropriately.The social aspect relates to the managers' ability to manage their emotions appropriately in their social relationships, particularly with regard to handling conflict and emotions stemming from it (BarOn, 1997;Cooper & Sawaf, 2000;George, 2002;Martinez-Pons, 2000;Orbach, 1999).Similar findings for the South African management context are reported by Coetzee (2005) and Palmer et al (2006).
The dominant eNTJ profile and in particular the Thinking (T) and Judging (J) personality types also suggest that the senior management group is highly task-focused, appears to favour creating logical order and struct ure in the organisation and prefer to use the process of logic in pursuit of organisational goals.Participants appear to favour being decisive and making decisions quickly and with confidence.Thinking-Judging t y pes tend to be objective, detached and "hard-headed" and tend to put emotions and the needs of others aside (Myers et al, 2003).
The Thinking-Judging preference therefore implies that the group of senior managers who participated in this st udy value efficiency, set high standards and value competence.However, in the process they appear to give less attention and energy to people-related behaviours that contribute to effective managing and leading (Myers et al, 2003).These include, for example, behaviours such as involvement of employees in decision-making and being open to employees' subjective needs related to extrinsic, intrinsic and relational motivation-related factors.The overrepresentation of South African managers who prefer the combination of Thinking and Judging on the MBTI is well documented in a wide variety of studies (Coetzee et al, 2006;Coetzee, Fouché, Rothmann & Theron, 2000;De Beer & Van der Walt, 1999;Du Toit, Coetzee & Visser, 2005).These findings could offer a probable explanation for the experiences of particularly females and support staff regarding the leaders' communication, control and decisionmaking st yle as well as manager-worker relationships as reported by the organisational culture and employee satisfaction survey results.In addition, the findings regarding the perceived emotional competency and dominant taskdriven personality type of the leaders also suggest probable reasons for the negative work/life balance experiences of the directors and associates.However, causality assumptions such as these need to be empirically validated by means of further research initiatives.

IMPLICATIONS
The findings have important implications for the organisation's current employment and retention practices.
Practices that match the needs of the individual with those of the organisation are likely to result in higher levels of satisfaction, commitment and performance (Dö ckel et al, 2006;Michaels et al, 2001;Robinson, 2006).Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg and Kalleberg (2000) found a significant link between management behaviour related to recruitment, selection and training; extrinsic, intrinsic and relational employee motivation-related factors; as well as practices designed to secure involvement and participation in decisionmaking and organisational performance and employee commitment levels.Furthermore, as expected from previous research, managers in the western organisational context tend to support rational approaches to decision-making, which emphasise creating challenging visions, setting "stretching" goals and demonstrating the self-confidence in achieving these targets in an objective, detached and "hard-headed" manner.Emotions are typically put aside as the logic is followed wherever it leads (Myers et al, 2003).It is therefore recommended that leader development efforts focus on instilling an awareness in senior managers of how their behaviour (particularly showing respect for employees' needs, the degree of support and encouragement they provide, the trust they demonstrate in employees' ability and the overall effectiveness of their current leadership behaviour) influences the degree to which employees feel committed to the organisation and are motivated to perform (Robinson, 2006).In particular, management needs to pay attention to the following issues that influence employees' satisfaction and sense of wellbeing: l effectiveness of communications about company performance and employees' contribution to this; l employees' satisfaction and feelings of being treated fairly with respect to performance appraisal methods; l pay and benefits, sense of job security and career advancement opportunities; l involvement in decisions affecting the job or work; l positive and supportive relations with managers; l levels of job satisfaction stemming from degree of influence felt over the job; l work/life balance; and l the amount of respect gained and a sense of achievement in doing the job (Bowen, Gilliland & Folger, 1999;Kotze, 2004;Purcell et al, 2003).Myers et al (2003) state that one of the hardest tasks for extraverted (e)-Thinking (T) managers is recognising the process of decision-making which involves the information and recognition seeking, inclusion and support needs of others.Practitioners could use 360-degree feedback instruments such as employed in this study and other inventories to provide practical, specific feedback to managers about their style and its impact.In particular, feedback should help managers to identify common strengths and weaknesses in leadership competencies according to personality type.
The findings of this study clearly show the daunting challenges that managers in South African organisations face.South African managers need to pay attention to efforts that attempt to reconcile the needs of the organisation with those of the employees.They also need to implement Human Resource strategies and management practices that not only further the organisation's performance but at the same time satisfy the quality of work life and extrinsic, intrinsic and relational motivation-related needs of a diverse group of employees.This includes improving the way things get done to ensure the long term effectiveness and success of the organisation in a dynamic competitive business environment.To facilitate this process, the continuous development of managerial leadership at all levels in the organisation will remain essential (Kotze, 2004).

Limitations and recommendations for future research
This study was a preliminary exploration of the perceived emotional competency and personality types of the senior managers in an attempt to illuminate probable reasons for employees' perceptions of the organisational culture and their levels of satisfaction.However, the relationship between the probable internal causality (the assessed emotional competencies and personality types) and the external causality (the organisational culture and employee satisfaction findings) need to be empirically validated by means of more rigorous measures and larger sample sizes.This could not be done in the current study because of the small sample of senior managers and the fact that the sample of employees was restricted to a single company.This limits the possibility of generalising the findings.Future research could focus on extending surveys of this nature to a broader range of companies and senior managers.Despite the limitations, the findings of this study are regarded as an important contribution to the expanding body of knowledge that focuses on the evaluation of organisational factors and leader attributes that influence the motivation, commitment and satisfaction of employees in South African organisations.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Overview of measurement

coefficienTs for conTenTs of The employee saTisfacTion survey
of those emotional competence behaviours to the individual being assessed.High scores on the current emotional competence behaviour scales indicate that the individual being assessed exhibits this behaviour.A high score on the importance of behaviour scale indicates that the particular emotional competence behaviour is important for the person being assessed.Low scores on the current behaviour scale indicates the absence of such behaviour, while low scores on the importance of behaviour scale indicate that the particular emotional competence behaviour is unimportant for the person being assessed.Only the current behaviour scale applied to the research as the concern was the actual demonstration of emotionally competent behaviour as perceived by employees.
The ECP questionnaire consists of seven sub-scales and 46 items.The eCP uses two four-point Likert scales to measure levels of current emotional competence and the importance

Table 3 organisaTional culTure: anova summary Table for The job levels as The independenT variables and The dimensions as The dependenT variables
** p <0.01 * p<0.05

Table 4 organisaTional culTure: anova summary Table of race groups as The independenT variables and The dimensions as The dependenT variables
** p <0.01 * p<0.05

Table 7 organisaTional culTure: anova summary Table for The gender groups as The independenT variables and The dimensions as The dependenT variables
** p <0.01 * p<0.05

Table 9 summary of significanT differences by dimension and biographical group for The culTure survey Culture Dimension Biographical Group
** p < 0.01 * p < 0.05 A: Directors & Associates/ B: Production/ C: Support Staff