Teklu, Tilahun (PhD)Teshome, Temesgen2018-11-062023-11-042018-11-062023-11-042011-06http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/13799The effective leaders are enablers that directly points to competent and committed employees. Studies in the organizational psychology and organizational behavior literatures have shown that leadership styles and employee commitment are of major factors to the organizational success or failure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between leadership styles (transactional, transformational, and laissez-faire) and employee commitments (affective, continuance, and normative commitment) in PHEIs at AAC. Total participants in the research were 115, included 95 academic staff and 20 leaders, with a nonresponse rate of 27.7% from 12 PHEIs. Two separate instruments, namely multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ) and organizational commitment questionnaire (OCQ), were used to measure leadership styles and employees’ organizational commitment respectively. The findings of the study revealed that transformational leadership style has significant and positive correlations with affective and continuance employee commitments while transactional leadership style has significant and positive correlation with only normative commitment. A laissez-faire leadership style is found to be significantly and negatively associated with employees’ affective commitment. Keywords: Leadership styles, Employee commitment, PHEIsenLeadership stylesEmployee commitmentPHEIsThesis