The effect of leadership style on safety behavior: A study on the perception of generation X and generation Y in Malaysia Army

Much attention has been focused on workers' perception of workplace safety. However, relatively limited studies focus on Malaysian Armed Forces particularly the Malaysia
Army. Effective leadership derives organization members to achieve a common purpose in safety behaviour. Leaders must influence followers to work together to achieve one mission. This research will explore the different generations that exist in the workplace today in the military organization. In this research, independent variables such as transactional, transformational, and situational leadership being discussed to determine their correlation or significant relationship with safety behaviour among generation X and generation Y. There are total of 250 sets of questionnaire had been distributed Malaysian Army and total number of 215 sets had been collected among soldiers in 3 !51 Royal
Artillery Regiment, based in Kem Tun Ibrahim, Kajang Selangor. The Cronbach Alpha were used to measure the internal consistency of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was constructed and modified based on Leadership Style and Work Safety Scale (WSS) Hayes et al. ( 1988) on the objective of the study. Some statistioal analysis had been used to test the objective of the study such as Multiple Regression Analysis. The frequency of descriptive statistics, such as mean, frequency, and standard deviation were used to analyze the relationship (transformational, transactional, and situational) affecting the safety behaviour among generation X and generation Y in Malaysian Army. Furthermore, the
inferential statistics, Pearson Correlation Analysis had been used at a significant level of
0.05 to determine the relationship between strengths between transactional, transformational, and situational leadership towards safety behaviour. Based from the findings, all independent variable have significant relationship (transformational, transactional, and situational) or correlation with dependence variable (safety behaviour) among generation X and generation Y in Malaysian Army. Furthermore, recognizing
different generations will assist leaders at every level in leading their people. Therefore,
capitalize on their strengths and skills for mission effectiveness and accomplishment in
safety behaviour in military organization.