Abstract:

This study aims to identify the leadership styles of librarian in four university libraries in Malaysia. The styles of leadership to be evaluated are transformational, transactional and laissez-faire. Questionnaire was used to collect data from 201 librarians from four university libraries in Malaysia. The findings revealed that respondents perceived themselves practising transformational leadership style more than transactional leadership or laissez-faire leadership style. The transactional leadership style showed significant difference among age groups. Moreover, there was a significant difference among transformational leadership and transactional leadership between levels of positions and working experience of respondents.  This study may give some ideas to develop new leadership styles, practitioners recognise their styles of leadership and the librarian may gain ideas and find other factors that can help them to engage with subordinates in the organisation.