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

1.1      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, Tennenbaunet,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.

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 objectives the research will cover in this work are:

i.                   To ascertain the conflicts and challenges on participative leadership style within the organization.

ii.                 To investigate the core reasons why the organization performance is positive or negative.

iii.              To highlight the benefits of participative leadership style on the performance off an organization.

iv.              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.

v.                 To critically evaluate the nature of leadership styles as it affects workers performance in Zenith Bank Wukari, Taraba State

1.4 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 hypotheses are as follows.

H0: there is no significance relationship in participative leadership style and the organizational performance of Zenith Bank Wukari.

H1: there is significance relationship in participative leadership style and the organizational performance of Zenith Bank Wukari

H02: There is no significant correlation on participative leadership style and the followers on performance improvement

H2:There is significant correlation on participative leadership style and the followers on performance improvement

1.5 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.

1.6 SCOPE AND LIMITATION 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.

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-depth 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

1.7 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 favored 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, enthusing, 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.

1.8 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows

Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), historical background, statement of problem, objectives of the study, research hypotheses, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlights the theoretical framework on which the study is based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study

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