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This paper aims to examine how the linkages between organizational commitment (OC) and five leadership styles, namely, authentic leadership, benevolent leadership, ethical leadership, moral leadership and spiritual leadership, have been investigated in the literature.

This systematic literature review applies a matrix method to examine the significant literature in leadership and OC, specifically considering themes of self-development, self-awareness, self-regulation, self-discipline and self-motivation necessary for individuals and organizations. The papers from Australian Business Deans Council, Scopus and Web of Science listed journals were reviewed. Forty-three peer-reviewed English publications from 20 journals were selected and analysed.

The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed that the relationship between OC and these leadership styles had primarily been mostly quantitatively investigated in many countries and sectors. Additionally, ethical leadership remains the most commonly researched style. Furthermore, there are mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions in the relationship between these styles and OC.

The literature search in this study was mainly focused on English articles only; therefore, some papers in other languages may not have been included. Additional qualitative studies based on these linkage themes need to be conducted in human resource development (HRD) contexts.

This review offers an overall picture of the existing knowledge of OC and leadership that will be fruitful for HRD practitioners to understand and replicate these concepts.

There are few systematic literature reviews on the relationship between OC and leadership styles. This paper is among the first systematic reviews to analyse how leadership has been associated with OC and provides potential research directions. HRD practitioners and academia should find the results of this study helpful.