INFLUENCE OF MANAGEMENT STYLE ON STAFF PERFORMANCE

CHAPTER ONE

1.0    INTRODUCTION

The main objective of any purposeful organisation is that of achieving its corporate goals.  The accomplishment of this objective depends to a large extent on how the organisation manages its 4ms of management which are Man, Machinery, Material and Money.

The ‘man’ that is arm of the 4ms refers to people that are to work towards the realization of the organizational objectives.  Among this people, there should be some selected few, who will manage and lead the others.  A manager is a leader, consequently, In psychological study, a leader is usually defined in terms of the group he leads, he is the person who manages, direct and controls the activities of the group so that the purpose of the group are achieved.

Leadership in a broader term is then defined as the process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly towards the achievement of group goals.

To lead is to manage, guide, conduct, direct and precede, indeed the ability to lead effectively is one of the requirement of being an effective manager.

Job performance to any manufacturing concern is a major requirement to survival. If the employees are not well co-ordinated, motivated, guided and controlled, they may work at about 50 at 60 percent of capacity, which is just enough to satisfy the requirement for holding job.

However, to achieve maximum efficiency in their job performance, the manager must induce devoted response on the part of subordinates by exercising appropriate leadership style.

The importance of managerial leadership styles cannot be overemphasized, since its appropriateness will affect to a large extent the overall success of the concern. Types of managerial leadership styles has been identified to include: free-reign managerial leadership style, Democratic managerial leadership style and Authocratic, Managerial leadership style.

These managerial leadership styles has varying and distinctive characteristics.  Thus the purpose of this research work is to critically examine the effects of these managerial leadership styles on the job performance of the employees.

1.1    STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS

The human resource of any organisation determines to a large extent, its success or failure and as such, its management and efficiency should be a major concern of this management.

However, it is a fact that most managers in business organisation finds it extremely hard to effectively lead the workers under them and to motivate them into putting in their best in their job performances.  This problems arises majorly due to the leadership style adopted by these managers.  Most managers cannot design the appropriateness of a particular managerial style, given a particular situation in achieving organizational objectives in terms of productivity.  Some of these problems are highlighted below.

(1)     Poor Communication: Communication has been regarded as the major element of interaction in a society, default in communication system will bring about poor interaction and as well, it is the life wire of every society.

Consequently, communication in an organisation will froster the relationship between the superior and subordinate in the organisation.  Meanwhile, a manager could only effective in his leadership roles only with effective flow of communication as poor communication has been regarded as a problem of leadership responsibility, which in turn affects job performance.

(2)     Poor Managerial Perception:- Job performance can only be enhanced, if leaders can understand employee indifferences within the organisation, which will thus enhance effective motivation strategy.  The failure on the part of a manager to identify the needs of employees so as to known, when and how to motivate them for effective job performance makes the leadership responsibility of such managers to be very poor and this will be a very big problem in achieving organizational goals and objectives.  It could also lead to high rate of job dissatisfaction, absentism, lateness and high labour turnover among others.