CHAPTER ONE

 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The business environment is changing radically as a result of major societal forces. Technological advances, globalization, deregulation, consumer awareness and the competition are leaching their toll on organizational performances and creating new behaviors and challenges. Although many factors may influence the performance of an organization, there can be little doubt that the quality of leadership available to it will be one of the most critical determinants of ultimate success. Leadership behavior plays a very important role in enhancing secretary job satisfaction, work motivation and work performance. In recognition of this fact, tremendous effort and resources have been expanded, with varying degrees of success, to identify and develop personnel who will occupy the positions of leadership needed to meet present and future organizational requirements. Good leadership behavior accelerates the development of most organizations. It therefore plays a critical role in the performance of organizations.

On the other hand, secretary performance is an important building block of an organization and factors which lay the foundation for high performance must be analyzed by the organizations. Since every organization cannot progress by depending on one or two individuals‟ effort, it is collective effort of all the members of the organization. Performance is a major multidimensional construct aimed to achieve results and has a strong link to strategic goals of an organization (Mwita, 2000).

Now, with this understanding, the question is, how can an secretary work more efficiently and effectively to increase the productivity and growth of an organization. Many secretaries in the workplace today seek a better understanding of the mind of a leader in an organization. However, secretaries are curious about the special traits, behaviors and styles that the leader exhibits at the workplace. Is there any correlation then between the ways leaders in an organization lead and manage secretaries and the performance of secretaries? If so, in what ways does leadership behavior influence secretary performance?

In Cameroon, recent developments in the way secretaries are managed have brought about the need to seriously consider secretaries as major stakeholders in organizations (Tchapchet et al, 2014). At a time when secretaries in other parts of the world are regarded as the main source of competitive advantage, Cameroon is still enmeshed in a labor crisis typified by industrial actions. most companies have started adopting the use of the BSC (Balanced Score Card) as a way of improving secretary performance (Malinger, 2004:53). This has improved the overall performance of such companies as secretaries are given feedback about their levels of performance and they improve on their areas of weaknesses. In addition, there is growing the country to better performance of secretaries through better leadership styles. as such this practice motivates secretaries to work hard and improve their performance of tasks (Tessema, 2005:18).

In Uganda, public universities and other tertiary institutions have faced significant secretary performance challenges during recent years (Kagaari & George, 2013:56). These institutions have found themselves in an increasingly competitive environment where there are fewer traditional students available to attend them (Thornton, 2013: 45) as cited in Kagaari, et al. (2013: 49). Therefore, this poses the need for effective leadership styles if these institutions are to deliver services in an effective manner.

According to Arvanitis and Loukis (2009: 261) secretaries can develop a sense of obligation, according to the norm of reciprocity, an secretary might engage in organizational citizenship behaviours or counter-productive work behaviours as a mutual action rewarding past leadership practices, especially those directed at secretary improvement and organizational status. In addition, the study focused on Autocratic, Democratic and Bureaucratic leadership styles as classified by Hackman and Johnson (2009: 26-65) and Cherry (2010: 39).

According to Cherry (2010: 23), the autocratic leader determines policy alone and assigns tasks to individuals without any consultation with them. Subordinates are expected to carry out the leader’s directives without question. The leader rules by decree. This type of leadership is also known as coercive, dictatorial, directive, dominating or authoritarian. These observations also appear in the work of Thornton (2013:45), Arthor (2009: 48) and Quang and Vuong (2009:86) who opined that autocratic leadership style is paternalistic or dictatorial style, and that it can be effective when the decisions made to reach organizational goals take into account the best interest of the secretaries.

The democratic leader seeks to persuade and consider the feelings of persons and encourages their participation in decision-making. Bacal (2004:37) observes that leadership in schools and colleges is not confined to the head teacher alone, but may be assumed by or dispersed to others including the deputy head teacher, team leaders, curriculum leaders and class teachers. Leaders influence followers’ organizational commitment by encouraging them to think critically, involving followers in decision-making processes and inspiring loyalty while recognizing and appreciating the different needs of each follower to develop his or her personal potential. This view was supported by prior research that showed that organizational commitment was higher for secretaries whose leaders encouraged participation in decision-making, emphasized consideration, were supportive and considerate and were concerned for their followers’ development (Adair, 2005:63).

Performance is defined as the ability of organizations to meet their tasks, requirements and objectives through strategic investment into organizing, executing and accomplishing roles and duties in the minimum time possible (Adair, 2005: 73). Organizational performance is therefore about executing defined duties, meeting deadlines, team input, and achieving departmental goals.

According to MacDonald (2003: 59) effective leadership leads to efficiency, specialization, effective feedback and good organizational relations. The cohesion of both leadership and performance should be evident through style and approach by managers in the attempt to cause efficiency which requires specific leadership approaches to unique performance challenges. It is argued that effective leadership has a positive sway on the performance of an institution /organization. Performance was conceptualized by attributes of efficiency, quality work, improved productivity as well as timeliness in task completion.

Bacal (2004: 72) confirmed the link between high performance and leadership by developing a model of charismatic/transformational leadership where the leaders’ behaviour is said to give rise to inspiration, awe and empowerment among his/her subordinates, resulting in exceptionally high effort, exceptionally high commitment and willingness to take risks. There is limited research on how the performance of secretaries in institutions is affected by leadership styles. Hence, this study established the relationship between leadership styles and the performance of secretaries in Express Union.

Performance at all levels and standards were below average in Express Union, as the Staff Evaluation Report (2012) shows drastic failure of staff to complete their tasks in time. For example, the Loan officers almost failed to recover collateral on time and in most cases loans are delinquent because of negligent of the loan officers. This level of performance is below average and discouraging. This made the researcher to query, “Could it be because the leaders and other stakeholders who are not applying proper leadership styles so as to effectively improve the performance of the institution or because of other factors?” This gives significance to the concept of leadership in achieving institutional performance targets and goals. In this case, are recognized worldwide that the success of Banks depends heavily on the motivation of their leaders on the workforce, which in turn determines their effectiveness.

This study was particularly interested in examining the relationship between leadership styles conceptualized in the study as bureaucratic, autocratic and democratic styles and Secretaries performance in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, increase in the number of customers, and zero level of loan delinquency in Express Union. The Government Assessment Report (2009) ranked Express Union as one of the averagely performing Banks, though a lot is still desired as there are rampant strikes in the micro-finance institution by secretaries and customers blaming management of failure to perform their duties which has always had a negative impact on the secretaries performance. Furthermore, for the past 7 years, the institution has been in top leadership wrangles over who should take the Assistant Manager position and, as a result, the performance of the institution has drastically declined.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Effective leadership is critical to the achievement of performance targets/goals and objectives in any organization. Microfinance institutions are expected to perform effectively in terms of service delivery and these quality services are supposed to be offered by the secretaries who are the image of the company. This performance depends on the quality of management of such leaders as their qualities affect the performance of staff negatively such that they end up getting discouraged and not performing their duties effectively.

The performance of Express Union has, reportedly declined over the past years despite having leaders. The Staff Evaluation Report (2012) revealed that over 60% of the secretaries failed to meet their performance targets as observed in longer duration to process loan files, inability to access efficiently the collateral situation of the potential debtor and arguments with customers. The micro finance ranking (January 2018) ranked Express Union as number 56 in Bamenda and number 134 in Cameroon in terms of performance. Yet, considering the Capital structure and the quality of secretary in Express Union, the results could have been better.

The internal Auditing Report (2015) observed that the decline in the secretaries’ performance was a result of poor leadership style of former manager who especially flouted and interfered with procurement rules.

Maybe it is because of poor approaches in leadership that there was poor performance among secretaries in Express Union. Hence, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between leadership styles and the secretaries’ performance in micro-finance institutions using a case study of Express Union.

1.3 Research Questions

The above problem statement has given rise to the following research questions.

1.3.1 Main Research Question

• How does Leadership Style affect the performance of Secretaries?

1.3.2 Specific research Questions

• How does autocratic leadership style affect the performance of secretaries in an organization?
• What effect does participative leadership style have on the performance of secretaries in an organization?
• How does Laissez-fair leadership style affect the performance of secretaries in an organization?

1.4 Objectives of Study

The main objective of this study is to assess the effect of leadership style on secretaries’ performance in Express Union.

The specific objectives of this study include the following

• To assess the effect of autocratic leadership style on secretary’s performance.
• To assess the effect of participative leadership style on organizational performance.
• To assess the effect of Laisssez-fair leadership style on secretary’s performance.