PARTICIPATIVE LEADERSHIP STYLE AND IT’S EFFECT ON ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE

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.