Abstract
A Leadership style is key in determining the level of employee performance in a company. It can either lead to increased or decreased employee performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the participative leadership style and its effect on organizational performance. The total population for the study is 200 staff of Zenith Bank of Wukari, Taraba State. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up managers, accountants, human resource managers and customer care was used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background of the study
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 organizational 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 organizations. 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 goals”. 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 goals”. 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 goal”.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, behavioral 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 ongoing 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.
