ABSTRACT
This research sought to find the link between leadership styles and
organizational performance. The research used a case study approach in which a
sample of 60 employees out of a population of 100 employees was used. The
targeted population was stratified into departments from which a simple random
sampling procedure was employed to come up with departmental representatives
who were then summed to make the final 60 sample elements. Questionnaires and
interviews were used in triangulation to collect data on the sample. An
analysis of the collected data revealed that autocratic leadership style used
by Zenith Bank Finances managers influences subordinates through negative
motivational methods and leads to malicious obedience to orders that will have a
negative effect on both individual and organizational performance. However, the
research also found that there are some factors which affect the performance of
a company besides leadership style namely poor employee performance, poor
motivational strategies, reduced staff morale and unavailability of resources.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
Leadership is a complex research area across all sectors be
it private or public. There is ambiguity over which styles and behaviors are
the most effective for organizational performance. There are difficulties in
linking LG Finances leadership styles with organisational performance since LG
Finance’s performance measures are affected by multiple confounding factors.
This research however, aims to see whether there is a link between leadership
styles and LG Finance’s performance.
For the past five years LG Finances has been experiencing a
decrease in output due to factors such as poor employee performance, poor
motivational strategies, reduced staff morale, and unavailability of resources.
It was assumed that the decreased output might be as a result of the leadership
styles being used by LG Finances. Given such a background, researcher saw it
possible to carry out a research to see whether there is a link between leadership
styles and organizational performance.
In a bid to improve performance, managers at LG Finances
employed a combined and coordinated system of managing human resource and their
performance to accomplish the goals of the organisations. However, this seemed
not to have changed anything as it was observed by the researcher that the
organization was experiencing slow growth rate due to rapid staff turnover.
Performance management approach was adopted in order to monitor employees'
performance in line with the goals of the organization.
Performance Standards were measured in terms of efficiency
and effectiveness based on discipline, punctuality, quality of work, quantity
of work and time taken to accomplish a task. It was also measured by the number
of complaints from Customers, compliments from the Customers, time taken to
attend to Customers by employees.
According to Lawal,A.A.(1993) Leadership is the process of
influencing others to work willingly toward an organizational goal with
confidence. “leadership is generally defined simply as the process of
influencing people to direct their efforts towards achievement of some
particular goal or goalsâ€. According to Koontz, et,al (1985), “Leadership is
generally defined simply as the art of influencing people so that they will
strive willingly towards the achievement of group goalsâ€. This concept can be
enlarging to include not only willingness to work but with zeal and confidence.
Nwachukwu,C.C.(2000), sees “Leadership simply as an act
that involves influencing others to act toward the attainment of a
goalâ€.Ubeku,A.A.(1975)define leadership as the act of motivating or causing
people to perform certain task intended to achieve specified objectives.
Leadership is the act of making things happen rather than letting things
happen. This the leader does by exerting both intrinsic and extrinsic
influences on the group. Even though leadership is the most visible of’ the
management functions. Largely because it deals so much with people. It has
variedly been referred to as directly, commanding, guiding, Inspiring,
initiating, and activating. However, all stand for the same purpose whatever
denotation used. The user, as the striking feature of all suggest a
relationship through which one person influences the behaviour of other people.
Sikula,A.F.(1996).Leadership has different meanings to
various authors. Some have interpreted leaders in simple term such as the
influence, the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive
willingly and enthusiastically towards achievement of group goals (Koontz,et,al
(1978).
The emphasis of this definition is that ideally, people
should be encouraged to develop not only willingness to Work but also
willingness to work with zeal and confidence.Leadership has also been
interpreted more specifically as the use of authority in decision making
exercised as an attribute of position, personal knowledge or wisdom
.Ejiofor,P.(1989) defined leadership as a social influence process in which the
leader seeks voluntary participation of subordinates in an effort to reach
organizational objectives. Similarly, Tennenbaun et,al (I968) defined
leadership as interpersonal influence exercised in situations and directed
through the communication, towards the attainment of’ a specific goal(s).
Adebakin and Gbadamosi (1996) defined leadership as the process of influencing
and directing the activities of an organized group towards the achievement of
the group of organization set objectives.The foregoing Lions show leadership
been based on function of’ personality, behavioural category, the role of’ a
leader and their ability to achieve effective performance from others, the
interpersonal behaviour and the process of’ communications.
Despite these variations, there are at least three
important implications of’ these definitions. Firstly, leadership is a process
engaged in by certain individual (leaders). It is an on—going activity in an
organization.
Secondly, it involves other people in form of subordinates
who by their willingness are influenced by the leader.
Therefore, the subordinates formalize the leader’s
authority by making leadership process possible. Thirdly, the aim of’
leadership is accomplishment of goal and objectives, a pointer that the leaders
attempt at influencing the subordinate are directional and therefore aim at
level of achievement.
1.1 Background of the Study.
Participative leadership is defined as the process of
making joint decisions or at least sharing influence in decision making by the
superior and his or her subordinates (Somech, 2005). It is not relatively a new
concept because it has a rich and varied history. It began to flourish in the
1980s in the guise of management policy initiatives inspired by the new
excellence movement and rise of human resources management (Beardwell and
Holden, 1997). It has many potential benefits. It is likely to increase the
quality of the decisions (Scully et al., 1995); to contribute to the quality of
employees’ work lives (Somech, 2002); to promote employees’ motivation to work
(Armenakis et al., 1993; Locke and Lutham, 1990; Yammarino and Naughton, 1992)
and to increase employee satisfaction and organisational commitment (Smylie,
Lazarus and Brownlee-Congers, 1996).
Moreover, in team situations, using a participative
leadership style is important because it leads to high levels of team outcomes
(Sagie et al., 2002), and solicits different ideas from team members
(Katzenbach and Smith, 1993). These scholars reflect a widely shared notion
that participative leadership has a great utility in organisational and team
effectiveness. It values the employee more than it does to the job, and such
leadership behaviour is likely to engender increased organisational commitment
among employees (Bass, 1981). The work attitudes of male workers favours a
directive way of leading with the focus on performance whilst that of female
workers on the other hand, favours a participative way of leading with the
focus on sub-ordinate’s commitment (Werner et al., 2007). These different
attitudes toward work are the characteristic of gender (Heilman et al., 1995).
The understanding of gender as an important feature of work behaviour has
become increasingly important in African organisations than ever before
(Ijeoma, 2010). With the advent of women in organizations, the study of
organisational behaviour has extended to encompass the male and female work
behaviour (Deal and Stevenson, 1998). However, there are relatively few written
significant variations between men and women (Kunkel and Burleson, 1999).
Leadership is an important area in management that occupies
of central position in our every day life. It involves the still of
leading and dealing with people. One thing among human group is that
there is always a leader otherwise the group cannot live to achieve its
purpose.
The success in leading a group is contingent upon both
leaders ability to held power effectively and the existence of an opportunistic
situation. The problems which result within organizational members
disagree on both the nature of the goals of which people aspire, and the art of
leadership. Leadership as we use to term in this work refers to behaviour
undertaken within the context of an organization that influence the ways in
which other organizational members behave. It could be observed that
leadership and management envisages deeply into what the organization can
achieve if the quality of recognition is accorded to them. Leadership has
been propounded to include the source of influence that are built into position
in an organizational hierarchy. These include organizational sanctioned
rewards and punishment authority and also export power. It could be seen
however that subordinates within the organization, though not all seen to enjoy
the influence that exist all over the above organizational hierarchy provided
by them in the organization.
Leadership is very essential in organization because
achievements and results occur vis-Ã -vis the tracts being projected by
leader. Leadership includes the ultimate source of power but has the
positive ability in persuading other individual and to be innovative in
decision making. Problems are sound to occur within every noted
organization. Decision making is found to generate conflicts in whatever
they are doing to achieve organizational goal. In the light, the notions
of leadership act are these which help a given organization in meeting those
stated objectives (Barelas 1960).
In general terms, the act of controlling other people
consist of uncertainty reduction which entails making the kind choice that
permits the organization to proceed towards its objectives despite various kind
of internal and external challenges.
Note: That in the society today, not only the
presence of reward (positive and negative) or the incentive appraisal could
induce productivity but the feeling of belongingness. Further expressions
like, is it my father’s work? “They can dismiss me, I don’t careâ€, “why
should I kill myself for them� There are some of the uncountable
expressions often used by Nigeria workers to show that attitude to work.
Whenever any of these expression are heard, one will readily know that
something is wrong somewhere in the entire system, so meaningful economics
development, growth and self reliance would not be obtained where unsuitable
leadership style is in place, therefore, how far an organization succeeds in
achieving its goals depends to a large extent on how the management and workers
relationship are handled in the organization, and this effect workers
psychological expectation. In the light of the foregoing, this study aim
is to look at the leadership style, the organization should adopt to attain
better performance. The work will also try to examine the philosophy of
leadership and its functional relationship with workers performance in a manufacturing
firm. Therefore, to discover more means of finding a lasting solution to
the numerous problems facing leadership styles on workers performance.
The increasing force of competition have awakened the minds of organizational
management to develop and acquire new technique and mechanism to increase the
level of organizational efficiency and effectiveness. This task requires
resources of the organization involved in production namely – money, material
and labour which need to be confirmed appropriately for effective performance.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Leadership style has become a very crucial area of
management. In fact, it has attracted the attention of many management
scientists who have actually delved into the difficult task of writing about
the subject in the management literature.
Improper leadership qualities within the organization have
a negative impact on the subordinates as well as the achievement of the
organization objectives.
For a long time, due to many factors, including the
‘hegemonic’ nature of communication in Nigeria, youths had little opportunity
to be active in governance, or make their views heard. However, with
improvement in communication technology, the status quo appears to be changed.
An effective leader influences followers in a desired
manner to achieve desired goals. Different leadership styles may affect
organizational effectiveness or performance.
Transformational leadership is a stronger predictor of both
job satisfaction and overall satisfaction. In the study it was concluded that
organizational performance is influenced by a competitive and innovative
culture. Organizational Culture is influenced by leadership style and
consequently, leadership style affects organizational performance. So
this research work is set to find its effects on the organizational
performance.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The main focal point and idea of this research work is
centered on the research topic itself which is on participative leadership
style and its effect on organizational performance. Other objective the
research will cover in this work are:
To ascertain the conflicts and challenges on participative
leadership style within the organization. To investigate the core reasons why
the organization performance is positive or negative. To highlight the benefits
of participative leadership style on the performance off an organization. To
access how zenith bank Wukari has been managing its organization in terms of
its performance, do the participative leadership style have any effect or not to
their performance. To critically evaluate the nature of leadership styles as it
affects workers performance in Zenith Bank Wukari, Taraba State.
1.4 Research questions
The research work is guided with same research question,
which will be administered and distributed among the researchers area of study
which are the respondents to this research project and these comprise followers
and management and leaders of Zenith Bank Wukari. Sample research question are:
Is there any conflicts in the participative leadership
style in management Zenith Bank Wukari? Is there any significant relationship
between high organizational performance and participative leadership style in
Wukari Zenith bank branch? What method of leadership style would you prefer
over the participative leadership style in improving the organizational
performance? Is there any effective and efficient leadership styles existing in
Zenith Bank Wukari?
1.5 Research hypotheses.
The researcher formed some of the hypothesis which will be
tested to support this study. The hypothesis will be tested at 0.05 level of
significance using the chi-square method and correlation analysis of the SPSS
report sheet.
The research hypothesis are as follows.
Hypothesis 1: there is a significance relationship in
participative leadership style and the organizational performance of Zenith
Bank Wukari.
Hypothesis 2: There is significant correlation on
participative leadership style and the followers on performance improvement.
1.6 Scope of the Study.
This research work will cover the two Zenith bank located
at Wukari LGA of Taraba State for the course of this research and this study is
on participative leadership style and its effect on organizational performance.
1.7 limitations of the Study
A lot of militating constraints were encountered during the
course of this write up. They are:-
Inaccessibility to some documents, which arose due to
security, imposed on some of the organization documents by the management. It
was not also possible to make an in-dept study of these documents, which would
have helped in the development of the project work.
Time was a major limitation to this write up, there wasn’t
enough time to study the details of the various field of the information
department of the organization unavailability of textbook needed for this write
– up was not found in the institution library.
1.8 Significance of the Study.
This research work will present in a precise manner, the
importance of participative leadership style and its effect on organizational
performance. It is believed that the findings of this research work should
provide detailed information on the effects of participative leadership style
methods in obtaining a high organizational performance. It is also expected
that the study will benefit the leaders and also the followers, researchers and
the organization in general.
The findings of the study should be useful to the
management of the organization. It is expected that the findings will expose
the leaders to the importance of participative leadership style to organization
performance. By this exposure the management and the leaders they could
acknowledge the advantage participative leadership style over other style of
leadership. It is possible that by this outcome the leaders and the management
would realistically adjust to the application of participative leadership style
in achieving greater and high performance in organization. In turn, the
followers would have real focus for better performance and achievements in
their duties.
Subsequently, it will go a long way to enhance the business
administration students’ effectiveness in the society by being capable of
carrying out what they have learned, thereby contributing to the building up of
the organization at any level and where they find themselves.
The research will also be beneficial to the researcher.
This is because the study will expose the researcher to so many related areas
in the course of carrying out his research. This will enhance the researcher’s
experience, knowledge and understanding on participative leadership style.
1.9 Operational Definitions of Terms
Leadership: The
process of directing and inspiring employee to perform task and oriented
activities of the organization.
Style: The various
behavior patterns favoured by leaders during the process of directing and
influencing employee.
Productivity: The
act of carrying out an action or a piece of work.
Motivation: The
force that influence, enthusian, direct employee energy towards the attainment
of set objectives.
Autocratic: One
who rules by his own power without seeking the opinion of his subordinate.
Democratic: One
who adheres to, or promote individual participation as a principle.
Laissez faire: A
leader general principle of no interference with the free action of his
subordinate.
Organization: Are
artificially contrived structures with procedures and objectives defining the
responsibilities and highlighting who does what type of job task.
Reward: Feeling of
satisfaction derived from achieving recognition and competence.
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