ABSTRACT

This is a study borne out of the passion for the growth of Nigerian Firms and the increment in the country’s’ level of income by increase in productivity through the job performance of the employees aided by the adoption of an effective and efficient leadership style. The success or failure of any organisation can be contributed to its style of leadership used by the management. This research work aims at assessing the impact of leadership style in achieving organisation goals. The instrument that will be use for the collection of data will be questionnaire will be randomly distributed and the research type will be descriptive method. The obtained data will be sorted, analyzed and interpreted through simple percentage count and statistical computation. Hence, this study will point out that the success or failure of any organisation is largely dependent on the type of leadership style that exists in the organisation, thus, encouraging every organisation to seek for good and the most effectiveways of managing their organisation.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

1.1    INTRODUCTION

Leadership can be thought of as both property of individuals and a process carried out by individuals. As property, leadership is a set of qualities possessed or attributed to those who carry the leadership process. As a process, leadership is an exercise of influence to facilitate and motivate the behaviour of others. Inspite of the possibility of leadership occurring in very diverse manners, the ease with which it can be observed and the extensive research focused on it, remains a puzzling subject for managers and educators.

Despite many studies of leadership, one prominent researcher has proposed that the concept of leadership has outlived its usefulness and should be abandoned in favour of some other concept Miner (1975). But the leadership concept will not go away and researcher are still pursuing a steady flow of leadership studies.

Many people consider managers as leaders but it is possible to be a leader without necessarily being a manager and vice-versa. However, being a leader is an integral part of being an effective management. To some, the words manager and leader carries very different meanings. Peter and Austin (1970) draw a distinction between managers and leaders, they associated manager with words like pronouncers, decision makers, referee, cop, controlling and restraining people. Leadership by contrast is about coping with change, part of the reason is that it has become so important in recent years that the business world has become more competitive and volatile, faster technological change, greater international competition, deregulation of markets, over capacity in capital intensive industries, an oil carter and the changing demographics  of the work force are among the factors that have contributed to this shrift. But for leadership achieving a vision, requires motivating and inspiring, keeping people moving in the right direction despite major obstacles to change by appealing to basic but often untapped human needs, value, emotions and aspirations.

Leaders may be classified according to a number of principles. By far, the most common form of classification has been of leadership style. Among the earliest studies of leadership was that of LIPPITT and WHITE (1943), they categorized leadership styles as “Autocratic”, “Democratic” and “Laissez-Faire”. The Ohio state university leadership studies were the first and most significant major effort at identifying leaders bevahiour. During the past 30 – years they focused their attention on two leading behaviour which are “Initating structure and consideration”.

The University of Michigan institute for social Research has since 1942 conducted a number of studies in industrial settings to explore relationships between principles and styles of leadership and job performance. They have argued that “Employee centered” supervision are higher producers of job satisfaction than “Job centered” supervision Likert (1961).

SELVIN (1961) developed a three dimensional structure of perceived leadership climate;

i.             Paternal in which the leaders are respected, feared and scorned.

ii.           Persuasive in which the trainees have confidence in their leaders who give them strong support.

iii.          Arbitrary in which the leaders were perceived as a loof, primitive, inconsistent, untrustworthy and nonunderstanding of confidence.

1.2    STATEMENT OF PROBLEM                                                     

The slow rate of work performance in Nigerian firms is attributed to their leadership problems. The slow rate of job performance has in turn led to low productivity. Despite the abundance of human and natural resources, yet we have experience expatriate in the leadership role of our organisations.

The prime motive of an organization is to achieve its goals and objectives, hence the need to effectively coordinate and motivate the work towards the end by an effective leaders. Unfortunately, some organisations concentrate more on factors like money. incentive and or physiological factors without giving such attention to the leadership style(s) adopted by the leaders.

In the course of this study, solutions will be proferred to the ineffective relationship of leaders with subordinates so as to encourage employees’ satisfaction and productivity.

1.3    PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVE OF STUDY                                

This study is designed to analyze the leadership styles used by managers (Leaders) in leading the organization towards achieving their set objectives.

The study aims at investigating the impact of leadership style on job performance.

The study therefore will explore and examine quite a number of leadership styles and thus specify which of them that may be recommended to the organization and other organizations to increase job performance.

Apart from investigating the impact of leadership style on employees’ performance, this study will also investigate the generalization of the past researchers on this field due to the observed controversial results that have been generated by these researchers on leadership style and job performance of employees.

1.4    RESEARCH QUESTIONS                    

The following general research questions were considered relevant to this study;

(1)         To what extent can leadership style influence employees’ high performance?

(2)         Does the nature of work environment affect leadership style?

(3)         Do organizational chart/structure determine leadership style?

(4)         Do employees want satisfaction with the leadership style of their management to warrant them perform better?

(5)         Can work performance be measured by the quantity of production or output?

(6)         Which leadership style is most effective?

1.5    STATEMENT OF RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS                       

In other to carry out this research study effectively, the following hypothesis will be tested for it’s validity or otherwise in other to be able to show the relationship between the two variables in question i.e leadership style and job performance.

1.      Ho:     The type of leadership style adopted has no effect on employees’ job performance.

          Hi:     The type of leadership style adopted has effect on the employees’ job performance.

2.      Ho:      Effective communication is not necessary for effective leadership    

          Hi:     Effective communication is necessary for effective leadership    

3.      Ho:     Better performance by subordinates does not mean that they are satisfied with management. 

            Hi:     Better performance by subordinates means that they are satisfied with management.

1.6    DEFINITION OF TERMS   

1.           POWER: Ability to do or act and have control over others. It could also be regarded as the authority to do something.

2.           LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS: Attributes a leader possesses.

3.           MANAGEMENT: The process or act of annexing a company’s resources to achieve the company’s goal.

4.           ROLE: A conspicuous part or function     

5.           PLC: Public Limited Liability Company

6.           PERFORMANCE: Accomplishment of a task.

7.           LEADERSHIP STYLE: Reasonably state of behaviour which a leader uses in his effort to lead.      

8.           LEADER: One who inspires others to work towards the achievement of a goal.

9.           MANAGER: A person who is formally accountable for job performance of other people in an organization.

10.       THEORY: A set of reasoned ideas intended to explain facts or events.

11.       HYPOTHESIS: Refers to a tentative statement that is subject to verification in order to establish whether the statement is valid or not.

12.       LEADERSHIP: Is the process of influencing the activities of an organization or organized group toward goal setting and goal achievement.

13.       POLICY: A guide to an action.

14.       OBJECTIVES: This is a statement of long term goals which an organisation seeks to achieve.

15.       GOALS: Statement of short term plans that an organization seeks to achieve.

16.       MANAGEMENT: A process by which scarce resources are combined to achieve given ends.

17.       MANAGERIAL FUNCTION: The fundamental work or assignments carried out by managers in the management of an organization.

18.       SUBORDINATES: These are the followers of a  leader.

1.6       SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY                                      

This research project being a study of leadership style will be limited to and its immediate environment. Therefore, the findings of the study would be generalized to any other goal that uses the same type of leadership style.

1.8    RELEVANCE OF STUDY

This is a study borne out of the passion for the growth of Nigerian firms and increament in the country’s level of income by increase in productivity through the work performance of the employees aided by the adoption of an effective and efficient leadership style.

Generally, the factors that lead to job satisfaction of employees depend on the degree of economic or social need of such employees. This research belongs to the group that holds the view that job satisfaction of an employee is a function of human element – leadership style.

However, this research will enable managers and leaders to know the type of leadership style to adopt in other to obtain the most effective performance from their subordinate. Moreso, the work will enable leaders to know that leaders who discuss problems  with their employees, who give them a chance to ask questions and make suggestions find more support for their action than supervisors who decide everything themselves. Though managers who find the key to their employee’s inner satisfaction can tap immense source of productive energy. The study will also enable leaders to know that the group behaviour in an organisation is to a great extent determined by leadership style. Numerous attempt by researchers have been made to relate leadership style and employees’ job performance; the results have been weak and inconsistent. They will however assume a strong linkage between leadership style and employees’ job performance.

The findings of this research will make workers have a better relationship with their superiors which will make them to naturally develop a good interest in their work which in turn leads to high level of productivity and maximization of shareholder’s wealth and organisation’s wealth as well. These benefits will extend to the society as such organization through their wealth will be socially responsible to the society by directing part of their resources and profits to them for their development and improvement. This shows that the relevance of this study goes beyond the leaders and employees’ satisfaction and high job performance to the development and growth of the industry and the society at large.

In summary, this study will also point out that, the success or failure of any organization is largely dependent on the type of leadership style that exists in the organization and this will encourage every organization to seek for good leaders and the most effective way(s) of managing their organization.

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