“The preferred leadership styles in vocational training corporations: Case of Jordan”

The study aims to identify the leadership styles (democratic, authoritative, auto- cratic, laissez-faire, transformational, and transactional) practiced by trainers at the Vocational Training Corporation as perceived by the female trainees in Jordan. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected by the questionnaire from respondents (n = 105 female trainees) selected by the simple randomization sampling and representing 50% of the population (n = 210). Among the questionnaires sent, only 104 were received and declared valid for statistical analysis. Major findings in- dicated that the democratic leadership style was mostly preferable by female trainees, where rated top by respondents (M = 4.50), followed by the transformational style (M = 4.23), and the authoritative style was rated the lowest (M = 2.58) compared with the autocratic, laissez-faire and transactional leadership styles. Thus, to keep increas- ing the development of training programs and obtain positive feedback for trainees, both trainers and managers of the Vocational Training Corporation necessarily need to practice appropriate leadership styles, develop a high level of learning and benefits.


INTRODUCTION
Leadership management has attracted greater attention by researchers because it is associated with the human element, particularly leaders in an organization who play significant roles in organizational success. Regardless of the field where they operate, business organizations are in permanent need of efficient staff. In turn, the management leader is the one who guides the human capital and invests it towards the success of the organization through positive impact on their behavior, instills in them the initiation, assume job responsibility, and adopt rational behaviors towards achieving the organizational goals and strategies (Alkhajeh, 2018;Lutfi, 2020). A proficient leader typically has innovative personality traits, influences the behavior of subordinates in the workplace, and applies strategic job trajectories that harmonize with the orientation of top-level management (Al-Khasawneh et al., 2018). A proficient leader believes that organizational success can be accomplished only by group work and collaboration with others, allowing opportunities for training and sharpening their skills, and rewarding their performance towards the flourish and progress of the organization. To implement these functions, a leader must be able to apply the behavioral and managerial practices using wise and smart approaches that are based on emotional intelligence, flexible personality traits, and authorization of powers that reflect distinctive individual and institutional performance in general (Malkawi et al., 2021).

THEORETICAL BASIS AND LITERATURE REVIEW
Leadership styles take a significant part in job performance and are considered a way to measure the development of human resources and organizations. Leadership styles also are the core of organizational and administrative activities because they affect the individual and group performance outcomes, as well as the various elements of the management process and institutional system.
In the context of vocational training, leaders assume a vital role in assisting trainees to acquire knowledge, skills, practical and theoretical experiences that enhance the performance of their jobs in conformity with organizational goals and strategies. The significant role of the leaders in training reflects the influence they practice on behavior, motivation, and development of the human element that is the hub of organizational success.
Leadership style has been described as the self-directed style used to lead subordinates and motivate them to perform a task. This direction differs from one leader to another depending on the interest in the human element, performance, or outcomes (Bass, 1985). Alternatively, leadership style was defined as the behavioral attitude and practices followed by a superior with subordinates (Brahim et al., 2015). In addition, Abu-Eideh (2010) described it as a unique set of personality traits of a superior that distinguishes him/her from others as an educational leader for purpose of influencing subordinates to achieve the organization's goals.
For this study purpose, leadership style is defined as the style practiced by trainers at Vocational Training Corporation with the female trainees in a way that influences their interests, increases their skills, and improves the training outcome.
There are many managerial leadership theories, and the following is a summary review of major leadership approaches.
Behavioral theories. The behavioral theories emerged in 1939 when the human relations and traits theory presented an unclear conception of what the qualities of an effective leader are. The behavioral approach of leadership demonstrated that behavior and interaction are critical for an effective leader. Some of the theories that emerged from a behavioral approach (Brahim et al., 2015) included: • Iowa studies, which were carried out on individuals recruited from athletic clubs and were assigned to groups each of which is supervised by a leader who follows a different leadership style. The study was focused on three leadership styles: authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire.
• Ohio Leadership Studies or Two-Dimensional theory, which was carried out in 1940 and concluded two styles of leadership that declared leaders who initiate structure behavior, establish formal lines of communication and determine how tasks will be performed. The other dimension of leadership style is consideration behavior where the leaders are concerned for subordinates and attempt to establish a warm, friendly and supportive climate, and encourage mutual respect and trust (Shiekh et al., 2009).
• Michigan Leadership Studies, which were carried out in 1947 and identified two broad leadership styles: an employee-oriented leader and a production-oriented leader (Brahim et al., 2015).
Transactional leadership. Transactional leadership dates back to Burnes (2000) and is distinguished from transformational leadership. This leadership style was common in the 1980s because it emphasized the performance element. Many studies such as Bass et al. (2003) considered transformational leadership as a continuation rather than substitution of transactional leadership. Transactional leadership is described as an implicit or explicit agreement between leaders and subordinates to reward behavior that conduits them to accomplish the goals (Alkhajeh, 2018). Kalsoom et al. (2018) thought that transactional leadership creates mutual benefit between a leader and subordinates from accomplishing the set goals. The opponents see that transactional leadership does not uncover the innovative potentials of employees but only concentrates on achieving the intended goals creating motivation to higher levels than what it is expected, and the employees are concerned with receiving reward and avoid punishment (Obiwuru et al., 2011).
Transformational leadership. It believes that a leader has the ability to influence others through effective communication and convey to them organizations' mission, vision, and goals. The transformational leader uses incentives to create self-motivation in subordinates, and follow his example in terms of cooperation, respect, and mutual trust (Dvir et al., 2002). Transformational leadership attracted much of the interest of researchers mainly Bass (1985), who argued that the transformational leadership style is appropriate to the modernity and environmental developments taking place. In this context, the transformational leader needs different capabilities to practice greater influence, and provide effective reinforcement and interaction. The effective transformational leader creates motivation in subordinates, elevates morale, and has a sharp vision, values, and ethics that attract employees to follow his example and encourage their loyalty in the workplace (Bass et al., 2003). What distinguishes transformational leadership from other styles is the openness, mutual trust, values, and ideal ethics; such a leader invests previous experience in future tasks, confronts challenges and resolves them with full effort, building an organizational vision commonly shared with subordinates, accepts risks and challenges, owning the sharp vision, clear mission, works enthusiastically and seeks for innovation and excelled performance (Attari, 2013).
In general, vocational training is considered a driving force that provides momentum to the development process and achieves positive outcomes for individuals and the community as a whole. The small and mid-sized business heavily depends on trades and crafts; graduates of vocational training institutions are frequently demanded in the market due to the skills they have. On the other hand, vocational training institutions take a significant part in providing employability skills to job seekers that help them initiate their startups, find jobs, or advance in their current jobs. Training has been viewed from different perspectives. Hareem (2013) described the training as efforts intended to provide the worker with knowledge and skills for purpose of excelled performance of the job. The knowledge and skills acquired increase worker's efficiency and creativity in the present and future. Due to the importance of training, many studies such as Dessler (2003) and Durra et al. (1988) found an inherent relationship between training and development and described the training as an organized and planned effort aiming at developing key skills of individuals.
Training is a difficult function as it involves transmission of knowledge, experience and skills from trainer to trainee, which requires trainers to acquire creative roles and skills to practice the training activities using effective leadership style to achieve the training program goals, develop the performance of trainees, and assist them in acquiring behavior, management and organizational skills (Al-Rabia & Al-Hadithi, 2018). In this context, training has different types and can be classified based on various factors; in terms of job level, there is the managerial, technical-vocational, or specialized training; training can be classified based on the place of training, time, or objective like the orientation, remedial, or development training (Fisher et al., 2003).
The subject of this study has taken a wide range of interest by researchers and global organizations. The study is interested in the most appropriate syles through practicing vocational training for females. Abu-Eideh (2010) conducted a study to identify the leadership styles (democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire) practiced by faculties at the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip, and to identify the most influential leadership style for job performance. Results found that the democratic style was the most frequently practiced (69.04), and it effectively influenced job performance of subordinates. While Alkahtani et al. (2011) sought to explore personality features and leadership styles among 105 directors in Malaysia and the impact of leadership styles on leading change. The study revealed that directors participating in the study followed the democratic leadership style, were open-minded and emotionally stabled. The study found a positive correlation between leading change and consultative leadership since change needs participatory group work rather than an individual. Al-Khasawneh and Futa (2013) aimed to identify the leadership style most commonly used by faculties at the Jordanian universities and to describe the effect of three leadership styles (authoritative, laissez-faire, and democratic) on student behavior modification at the public universities in Jordan. Results revealed that democratic leadership was most often used by faculties at public universities and was very effective for student behavior modification. Tahtouh (2016) measured the impact of leadership styles (autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire) on organizational citizenship behavior from the viewpoints of employees at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. The study found that democratic leadership was the most commonly practiced style in the work environment, followed by the transformational leadership style. As for the level of impact on organizational citizenship behavior, the laissez-faire leadership style was the most influential, followed by the democratic style. Another study by Basit et al. (2017) investigated the impact of leadership style (democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire) on the performance of employees and found that the most significant value associated with the performance of employees was democratic leadership style, and then the laissez-faire leadership style. Results showed that the authoritative leadership style negatively affected employee performance to a significant degree. Dabun and Sayti (2018) reviewed leadership styles (transformational, transactional, ethical, and leading by emotional intelligence) and their effect on the organizational citizenship behavior among employees of the Estate Department in Gardiya. Findings showed the transformational leadership style was the most influential on the citizenship behavior followed by the ethical and finally leading with emotional intelligence style. Comparatively, there was a weak impact of the transactional leadership style on organizational citizenship behavior. Al-Thabiti (2019) aimed at defining the management skills required to develop the performance of academic leaders at Saudi universities. The study found that the application level of academic leader's performance development strategies was rated as "disagree" by the respondents. However, the major obstacles were associated with organizational aspects, and salient capabilities that contribute to the development of the academic leaders at universities were self-management, institutional management, human resource management, program management, performance management, and project management sequentially.
The review of the literature demonstrates that despite different work environments, directors, in general, were found to adopt mostly democratic and transformational styles of leadership.
In general, prior studies concentrated on the academic university institutions from the viewpoints of the faculties. However, there is a lack of studies addressing vocational training issues, especially in Jordan and the Arabian environment. The current study is distinguished from prior studies in terms of objective, population, and targeted sample. This study reviewed various leadership styles practiced in the training process at the Vocational Training Corporation and sought to identify the leadership styles preferred by female trainees. The placement of the trainer in the organizational hierarchy represents a supervisory role for the trainee, and a referential source of information, guidance, and cognition. This paper seeks to explore the trainers' leadership styles (democratic, authoritative, autocratic, laissez-faire, transformational and transactional) as practiced at the Vocational Training Corporation from the viewpoints of trainees, and to propose suggestions that may contribute to the development of the leadership styles practiced during the training processes in light of the objectives of the Training-to-Employment Programs and Jordan's Strategy 2025.

AIMS AND METHODOLOGY
This study aims to identify the preferred leadership styles of training (democratic, authoritative, autocratic, laissez-faire, transformational, and transactional) by the female trainees in vocational training corporations.

Sources of data
The present study adopts the analytical descriptive approach for addressing the problem, answering the study questions, and achieving its objectives. The following sources of information were consulted: 1. Secondary sources included references, books, and research articles relevant to the subject of the study and published on paper and online databases.
2. Primary sources included field data using a questionnaire instrument developed and distributed to respondents for data collection and analysis according to study objectives.
The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to compute percentages, means, standard deviation, Pearson correlation, and Chronbach's alpha for analyzing the results. The analysis unit used in the present study was the female trainee in the vocational training programs implemented by Irbid Vocational Training branch for females in Jordan.

Population and sample
Population (n = 210) consisted of female trainees attending a training program at Irbid Vocational Training Corporation. This population is primarily targeted by the policies and strategies of the center and training programs implement there. Mainly, Vocational Training Corporation seeks to provide technology education and training to female trainees under suitable leadership practices during training, which complies with the strategies implemented in the corporation for purpose of creating in trainees the knowledge, training, empowerment, and job skills they need to get into the employment market. There are other vocational training branches spread across the country, but they were excluded from the current study, since Irbid Vocational Training Corporation, in particular, involves a major part of the female trainee population, which allows for generalizability of results.
Participants (n = 105) were selected using the simple randomization sampling of the female trainees attending Irbid Vocational Training Corporation, representing 50% of the population. The questionnaires were sent to participants through the Center's Head Office, and among questionnaires returned, only 104 were found valid for statistical analysis. Table 1 shows the distribution of participants by demographics. As for the type of training program pursued by the female trainees involved in this study, fashion design and tailoring have come in the first rank (M = 29.8%), whereas data entry was placed second (M = 23.1), selection of other programs (beautification, typing, and secretary) was placed last with approximately the same means. This means that female trainees select training programs that respond to their personal preferences and job opportunities demanded in the market.

RESULTS
To test for superficial validity of the questionnaire for data collection and ensure accuracy of items, the instrument was sent to several academically expert judges in the Saudi and Jordanian universities to elicit their opinions regarding the themes addressed by the study. Based on their opinions and suggestions, the items were rephrased for greater intelligibility and coherence. The questionnaire primarily measured two themes: the first part collected demographic data about the participants (age, type of training program). The second part measured the status of leadership styles practiced during the training (democratic, authoritative, laissez-faire, autocratic, transformational, and transactional) by the trainers, and the relevant literature (for instance, Al-Khasawneh and Futa (2013), and Tahtouh (2016)) was reviewed to identify variables employed in the current study.
Likert 5-point scale was adopted to measure questionnaire items (Strongly Agree, Agree, Moderately Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree). The following mean weighs were assigned to measure items (< 2.34 = Low Degree; 2.34 to < 3.67 = Moderate Degree; > 3.67 = High Degree).
The following ratings (low, moderate, high) were assigned to the leadership's styles practiced depending on the following formula: representing the highest level for the domains measured by the questionnaire (Malkawi, 2019).
To test the instrument reliability, Cronbach's alpha was computed for the items related to both leadership styles practiced in the training and the leadership styles preferred by trainees. To measure reliability of the instrument, the questionnaire was administered to a pilot sample consisting of 34 trainees who opted out of the original sample. The second administration was conducted two weeks later, and the Pearson correlation was computed for responses on all study domains. The re-liability coefficients between the first and second applications for the study domains and overall instrument were statistically significant implying reliability of the instrument and Table 2 shows relevant results. Table 2 shows that the correlations between responses of the pilot sample on the two applications ranged between 0.48-0.67 for the study themes and domains, which are statistically significant at α ≤ 0.05 implying reliability of the study instrument. Cronbach's alpha was applied in the first application on the study themes and domains as shown in Table 3.  To answer this question, means and standard deviations were computed for participants' responses to domains regarding leadership styles most preferable by female trainees during the training process. Table 4 shows the related results. Table 4 shows that the mean estimates of respondents regarding the preference of leadership styles by female trainees during the training process ranged between 2.54-4.35. Results demonstrated that the democratic style of leadership was ranked top with the highest mean estimate, followed by the transformational, autocratic, transactional, authoritative, and laissez-faire styles of leadership sequentially.
Besides, results showed that the highest mean score was given to the democratic style. Then the transformational style was placed in the second rank followed by the autocratic, transactional, authoritative styles sequentially, and the laissez-faire style was ranked the last. Results also demonstrate that the overall leadership styles preferred by female trainees were estimated high (M = 3.89; SD = 0.98).
To demonstrate the level of preference of the leadership styles during the training process, means and standard deviations were computed for participants' responses to items representing each of the leadership domains individually, and Table 5 shows the results. Table 5 showed that the mean score of respondents' responses regarding trainees' preference level of the democratic style during the training process ranged between 4.34-4.36, and overall estimation was high for all items. Item number one was rated top (M = 4.36), and item number two was ranked in the last place (M = 4.34). However, the mean score of the overall contribution of the democratic style to the distinguished performance of the trainees was high (M = 4.35).  Table 6 showed that the mean score of respondents' responses regarding trainees' preference level of the authoritative style during the training process ranged between 3.73-3.91. Item number one was placed top (M = 3.91) with high estimation, and item number two was ranked in the last place (M = 3.73) with high estimation. However, the mean score of the overall preference of the authoritative leadership was rated high (contribution of the democratic style to distinguished performance of the trainees was high, M = 3.82). Table 7 showed that the mean score of respondents' responses regarding trainees' preference level of the autocratic style during the training process ranged between 4.11-4.27. Item number one was placed top (M = 4.27) with high estimation, and item number two was ranked in the last place (M = 4.11) with high estimation. However, the mean score of the overall preference of the autocratic leadership style was rated high (M = 4.19). Table 8 showed that the mean score of respondents' responses regarding trainees' preference level of the laissez-faire style during the training process ranged between 2.24-2.84. Item number one was rated top (M = 2.84) with moderate estimation, and item number two was ranked in the last place (M = 2.24) with low estimation. However, the mean score of the overall preference of the democratic style was moderate (M = 2.54). Table 9 showed that the mean score of respondents' responses regarding trainees' preference level of the transformational style during the training process ranged between 4.22-4.38. Item number one was rated top (M = 4.38) with high estimation, and item number two was ranked in the last place   Based on Table 4, results showed that the overall leadership style preferred by trainees was rated high (M = 3 It is concluded that the tendency of female trainees to the democratic and transformational styles of leadership is attributed to the fact that participants were massively females who tend to be more caring and tenderness, justifying the tendency to flexible styles of leadership like the democratic and transformational styles during the training process rather than more inflexible styles. It is considered that the training process engages trainees with dialogue, discussion, and interaction that facilitates knowledge sharing, learning, and acquiring skills that improve their life by initiating their start-ups and entrepreneurial projects, and entering the employment market.

CONCLUSION
Leadership styles are a significant element in organization management, impacting personnel performance and behavior inside the organization, and having an influential role in business advancement. In this context, results of the current study revealed that the democratic leadership was the highest preferred style by trainees (M = 4.35, SD = 0.82), followed by the transformational style (M = 4.30, SD = 0.93). The laisses-fair style of leadership was ranked the last (M = 2.54, SD = 1.19) indicating the least preferred leadership style by female trainees. The implication from earlier results is that female trainees attending Vocational Training Corporation in the Jordanian environment prefer leadership styles that reflect flexible relationships based on mutual respect, dialogue, and interactive interpersonal skills. Upon the results of the study top-level management of the Vocational Training Corporation is recommended to recruit management leaders who adopt and practice modern leadership styles that respond to human values and emotions and consider the needs of people, which in turn provides support to the leadership styles appropriate to training in the work environment. It is also recommended to keep the continual practice of the democratic and transformational styles of leadership during the training process according to predispositions and interests of the trainees, and reinforcing trainees' behavior at the corporation through involving them in high-level development and rehabilitation programs, and instills the culture of inspiring leaders through the center's strategies (mission, values, and goals).
Skilled and qualified trainers that have academic and practical experience records based on efficient staffing resources are recommended to conduct a continual appraisal of trainee's performance to ensure efficient training methods, develop and correct weaknesses if any. In addition, decision-makers at the Vocational Training Corporation, and the government institutions in general, are advised to adopt the democratic and/or transformational style of leadership because of their prominent role in accomplishing success and excelled performance.
In addition, the Vocational Training Corporation is encouraged to make long-term collaborative partnerships with other training centers and institutions at the domestic, regional, or international levels, which enables experience and knowledge sharing. Moreover, the Vocational Training Corporation is advised to develop a network with public sector organizations and create partnerships for purpose of creating new job opportunities for graduates. Further studies involving other training centers in Jordan need to be conducted to investigate leadership styles in light of other variables and pay greater attention to vocational training as a field of study considering its role in creating job opportunities and training employability skills.