Abstract
Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal relationship between the empowerment and the creativity of staff with leadership styles in physical education departments of Islamic Azad Universities in Iran.
Methodology: This research work was causal in terms of the applied purpose, and in terms of the nature of the work, it was conducted in a survey. The statistical population in this study was 800 people including all the staffs of the physical education departments in Islamic Azad Universities. The sample size was 260 by the Cochran formula. The questionnaires used in this research work were the Spritzer's Empowerment ones (1998), the Abedi Creativity Questionnaire (1984), and the Hersey-Blanchard Leadership Style Questionnaire (1986). In this work, for data analysis in the descriptive statistics section, statistical indicators such as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were used. In the inferential statistics section, structural equations were used to study the multivariate relationships and hypothesis testing.
Results: In the study of the relationship between the staff empowerment and the staff creativity in physical education departments, based on the results of structural equations, the path coefficient between the staff empowerment and the staff creativity was 0.86, which showed a significant relationship between these two variables. In the relationship between the creativity and leadership styles, there was a positive and significant relationship between the variables. Also the results obtained showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between the staff capability variable and the leadership styles in the physical education departments of the Azad University units.
Conclusion: Based on the findings of this research work, it is recommended that the officials, managers, and policy-makers of the physical education departments of the Islamic Azad Universities pay special attentions to the empowerment of staffs as increasing capability, the self-esteem of staff also increases, and this promotes the creativity among them. In the meantime, with the appropriate leadership style, these factors can be used to increase the performance and efficiency of the organization.
Keywords
)