CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1. 1 Background to the Study

In society today, thousands of individuals are appointed or elected to shoulder the role and responsibilities of leadership. Leadership is practiced in schools and colleges, factories and farms, business enterprises, dispensaries and hospitals, in the civil and military organizations of a country and public life, at all levels, in short in every walk of life. These leaders should promote unity, harmony, strength, prosperity and happiness in the society.

The challenges of coping with today’s uncertain business environment have put many organizations on their toes to struggle for survival in the heat of competition. The driver of such strategic move towards surviving the competition is the leadership provided by managers who are expected to influence others in achieving organizational goals and also boost employee’s performance. Shafie et al. (2013) explains the importance of leadership in organizations and especially on human beings who are apparently the biggest asset of any firm; “The main drivers of organizations are usually employees, they give life to the organizations and provide goals” (Shafie et al., 2013). It is very paramount to provide workers with direction and psychological satisfaction to get the best from them, this direction can only come from leaders. In fact, leadership is very critical for all organizations in realizing their set objectives. Since leadership is a key factor for improving the performance of many if not all organizations and the success or failure of an organization depends on the effectiveness of leadership at all levels.  “Leaders play essential role in accomplishment of goals and boost employee’s performance by satisfying them with their jobs”.

Viewing the existence between the various leadership styles to employ and the confusion that exist between managers in different organizations on the best leadership style to employ on her or her subordinates in other for them to increase on their efficiency and effectiveness like what the researcher saw at BAFCCUL made the researcher deemed it necessary to write on this topic; “The Effect of the Manager’s Leadership Style on the Employee’s Performance” (case study: BAFCCUL).

 Traditionally Leadership is an interpersonal influence directed toward the achievement of a goal or goals. Three important parts of this definition are the terms interpersonal, influence, and goal. · Interpersonal means between persons. Thus, a leader has more than one person (group) to lead. · Influence is the power to affect others. · Goal is the end one strives to attain. Basically, this traditional definition of leadership says that a leader influences more than one person toward a goal.

Leadership is a dynamic relationship based on mutual influence and common purpose between leaders and collaborators in which both are moved to higher levels of motivation and moral development as they affect real, intended change. (Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg, NUTS! SACBPS Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, Bard Press, 1996, p. 298) Three important parts of this definition are the terms relationship, mutual, and collaborators. Relationship is the connection between people. Mutual means shared in common. Collaborators cooperate or work together.

Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence others to work beyond ordinary levels to achieve a goal or an objective, and can also be seen as the act of influencing people so that they will strive willingly towards the achievements of group goals. Leadership styles can be seen as the various approaches implemented by the manager on the employees in order to achieve or attain organizational goals and objectives. These leadership styles may include the authoritarian, democratic, laissez-faire, autocratic, or transactional leadership style. The styles here are manipulated by the manager in order to match with a full situation at any point in time. The leadership style adopted by the manager determines the relationship that exists between him and the employee and level of the employee’s productivity. An employee on the other hand is administrative staffs who work in collaboration with the boss carrying out activities in order to attain the organizational goals. Sometimes companies lack the expertise of a good leader accompanied by competent employees to realize their objectives, and it is in this light that the researcher addresses the research problem of this study; does the manager’s leadership style have any effect on the employee’s performance?

Every organization or enterprise requires the services of the employee who assists the manager or the boss in activities as earlier mentioned. The efficiency and effectiveness of the employee in his/her duties depends on the leadership style implemented on him/her by her manager. A good leadership style gains the employee’s commitment to work and elicits good behaviors towards increased productivity, otherwise a poor working environment and relationship between the employee and the manager thereby resulting in poor performance and low productivity

Basely and Robinson (1964) states that the work of an employee varies according to the kind of products or services rendered by the organization in which he/she is employed, the size of the organization, and the employers manner or method or work can make or mar an employee’s ability to work. The survival of every organization depends on the performance of its leader. In order not to lose identity, he takes his place before the group as he inspires the workers to accomplish organizational objectives.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

In the case of BAFCCUL, only a fraction of staff received bonuses which were purely pegged on performance implying that many employees failed to meet the set targets for the year]]  2016, this clearly shows that the performance for that period has not been to the expected standards. Employee performance which is perceived as: Executing defined duties, meeting deadlines, team input, and the cohesion of both leadership and performance should be evident through style and approach used by managers in the attempt to cause efficiency.

1.3 Research Questions

The fundamental research problem that this study seeks to investigate is whether the productivity of the employee is in any way affected by the leadership style adopted by the manager as per the following questions:-

1. What is the effect of corporate style of leadership on employee performance in BAFCCUL?
2. What is the effect of the Laissez – faire leadership style on employee performance in BAFCCUL?
3. What is the effect of the authoritative leadership style on employee performance in BAFCCUL?

1.4 Research objectives

Based on our study, we realized that the corporate, laissez-faire and authoritative leadership style where the most commonly used in BAFCCUL. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the different leadership styles on the employee’s productivity upon which the following specific research objectives were developed:

The study was guided by the following specific objectives:

1. To investigate the effect of Autocratic leadership style on employee performance in BAFCCUL
2. To establish the effect of the Laissez – faire leadership style on employee performance in BAFCCUL

• To analyze the effect of the Transformational and Transactional style on employee performance in BAFCCUL

1. To make recommendations