IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLE ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SELECTED TRANSPORT COMPANIES IN BENUE STATE NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This   study   surveyed   the   impact   of   leadership   style   on   the performance  of  selected  transport  companies  in  Benue  State, Nigeria. Three transport companies were drawn in Benue State for the study, namely: Benue Links Nigeria Limited with its headquarters located at Wurukum, Makurdi, the Benue State capital. Denjim Transport Company has its own corporate headquarters at 97 Gboko Road Makurdi, Benue State while Iwiene Nigeria Limited has its head office  located at  55  Onitsha Street, Wuru  Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria. Inherent to poor leadership style which had impeded on the performance  of  these  companies  had  led  to  this  study.  The researcher adopted a survey design, with a population of 120 drawn from the selected companies. This was achieved through proportional stratified  random  sampling  techniques. A  five  points  rating  scale questionnaire was used to collect primary data from the research population. The collected data were analyzed and interpreted using percentage and mean statistic while the hypothesis were tested with chi-square. The study discovered that leadership style affect organizational performance of any given company. That the style of leadership a manager adopted has a direct effect on the organizational performance of the employee. The study among others things discovered are, that participatory style of leadership and delegation of duties enhances the employee performance and attainment of corporate goals and objectives. The study therefore concludes that achievement of organizational goal and objective depends solely on the leadership style an organization adopted. It therefore recommends that, since leadership style is one of the basic tools used in attainment of organizational goal/objective, every organization   should   ensure   that   the   right   leader   man   their organization in order to achieve their set goal/objective.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Leadership is conceived as a process where one or more persons influence a group of person to move in a certain direction. The word leadership has been used in various aspects of human endeavour such as politics, business, academics and social works. Messick and Krammer (2004) argue that the degree to which the individual exhibits leadership traits depends not only on his characteristics and personal abilities, but also on the characteristics of the situation and environment in which he finds himself. Therefore, an individual will support the organization if he believes that through it his personal objective and goals could be met, if not, the person’s interest will decline.

Among  the  objectives  of  any  organization are  profit  making  and attainment of maturity and liquidity status. In the pursuit of these objectives, organizations allocate scarce resources to competing ends. In the process they provide employment, provide goods and services, purchase goods and services and, thus contribute to the growth  of  the  society  and  economy  at  large.  Unamaka  (1995)

observes that, the effectiveness of this process is greatly determined by the availability of and access to personnel, finance, machinery, raw material and possibility of making their goods and services available to their customers.

The extent to which members of the organization contribute in harnessing the resources of an organization equally depends on how well the managers or leaders of the organization understand and adopt appropriate leadership style in performing their roles as managers and leaders. Thus efficiency in resource mobilization, allocation, utilization and enhancement of organizational productivity depends, to a large extent, on leadership styles among other factors. Chuang (2005) explains that the excellent leader not only inspires subordinates’ potential to enhance efficiency, but also meets their requirements in the process of achieving the common target of the organization. Fry (2003) states that leadership as a use of leading strategy to offer inspiring motive and to enhance the staff’s potential for growth and development in the organization. Burn’s (1975) approach is that leadership influences subordinates to exert greater effort in the pursuit of higher-order needs; support a greater vision for

their work group or organization and in the course perform beyond expectations.

Stoner (2000) defines leadership as a process of directing and influencing the task of related activities of group members. It can also be seen as the process of influencing other people to achieve organizational objectives. Bass (1982) defines leadership as an interaction between members of  a  group. Leaders are  agents of change, persons  whose  act  affect  other  people more  than  other people’s act affect them.

Leadership occurs when one group member modifies the motivation or competence of others in the group. Also, Nongo (2009) states that leadership entails an unequal distribution of power between leaders and  group  members.  Group  members  have  power,  but  leaders usually have more powers. According to Rachin (2001) leadership is directly connected to the practice to which people are dedicated. The most substantial of leaders is their influential personality that has positive   relation   with   the   follower,   job   satisfaction   and   the performance (Joseph, 2011). Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans and motivating

people. Having acquired the human resources, there is the need to maintain  and  keep  them  together, it  should  be  noted that  every individual has his personal expectation for working in an organization. To this effect, the leader must employ the various ways of making sure that the employees stay at work, feel contented, ready to put in their best and that their expectations are met without neglecting the overall corporate objective(s) of the organization.

There are numerous styles of leadership but for this study, the transformational leadership, transactional leadership and laissez-faire leadership style is considered. The transformational leadership style is more effective, productive, innovative, and satisfying to followers as both  parties  work  towards  the  good  of  the  organization  been propelled by shared visions and values as well as mutual trust and respect  (Avolio  &  Bass,  1991).  Transactional leadership style  as opined by Burns (1978) indicated that transactional leaders are those who sought to motivate followers by appealing to their self-interests. They motivate subordinates to achieve expected levels of performance by helping them to recognize task responsibilities, identify  goals   and   develop  confidence  about  meeting  desired

performance level (Bass, 1990), while laissez-faire style is an absolutely passive leadership.

Productivity is the ratio between input and output which is the total factors required to achieve it. Productivity is efficiency in individual production. It is a multinational factor in organizations, in which it could be principally improved by employees’ efforts. The relationship between leaders’ behaviour or the leadership style and subordinate has  gained increased attention from  the  community. The  kind  of leadership style influences how organizations cope with improving productivity, the transformational leadership style play a crucial role in improving productivity by way of improved marketability and creating strategic vision of the organization. Leadership style affect the overall operational  performance  of  effectiveness,  efficiency,  profitability, large market share and as well as the organization commitment to achieve a stated goal.

Behind the wonderment of any organization productivity today is the leadership style adopt by the organization. Productivity in every organization  is  largely  centered  on  labour  productivity,  perhaps human  labour  is  the  universal  key  resources  required  of  any

organization and the assertion that a critical element in all successful productivity effort to date has been due to good leadership style. It is based on this backdrop that this research study seek to investigate the impact of leadership style on the performance of selected transport companies in Benue State, Nigeria.

1.2    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Research reveals that what seems to be blind spot among company planners about their own leadership and management skills. You might look at this and say that leadership is just about being nice to people,  however,  it’s  far  more  complex  that  what  people  see; coercive leaders can have a slightly positive impact on standards and pacesetters on responsibility. As Coleman (1996) points out, no one leadership style is going to be right one in every situation. Leaders in public service like Benue links Nigeria limited have to balance their concern for their co-workers with their responsibility to the community they serve. A lot of people think that one need to pay people more money to motivate them, wrong there are plenty of low and no-cost strategies you can use to motivate staff, executives who want to improve performance will bring in tough managers or promote the most productive staff member as a pacesetter. Leadership is the art

and craft of influencing the thinking and behaviour of audiences to achieve mutual goals, leadership is not about what leaders do, but the relationship between leaders and subordinates.

Having weak, ineffective managers in the workplace has many damaging effect on employees and the firm as a whole. Company with poor managers almost always perform below expectations, they lack vision, an adequate understanding of business finance and good communication skills. By recognizing if these characteristics are present  in  the  manager  of  their  firms,  company’s can  make  the necessary changes in order to prevent failure. Many planners undervalue leadership because, I believe, they hold on to old, the incorrect assumptions about the subject but as professionals whose work greatly affect the public, there is need to have a responsibility to be effective and efficient. An effective leadership makes decisions with the information available, provide clear guidance, flexible enough to change direction, delegate and build team spirit. A leader that involves employees in the company’s operation builds morale and improves productivity, when staff feels alienated, morale and productivity  suffer.  If  you  search  for  project  on  leadership  style, almost every expert agrees that no management style is able to fit all

projects. Unfortunately, leaders who are unable to be flexible, trustworthy,  open  and  inspiring  may  have  a  combination  of  the varying traits of management styles with no clear definition to guide a team.

An  effective  manager realizes  the  need  for  change  in  style  and adapts the correct style to the team or project goal. Managers that fall claim to many complaints to upper management from team members should  re-evaluate their  manager goals  and  project management certifications to help improve their careers. While no project management leadership style may be the best style, each should be considered  when  tackling  projects.  As  Coleman  points  out,  a manager should consider the project and then select an effective style, or “choose the correct club for the shot,” To bring projects to successful completions. You may have the title of manager but what is your project management leadership style? Are you forceful, determined, opinionated, or  feared?  Surprisingly, there  are  many projects management leadership styles and no style fits all projects. What makes you a leader is what you do when problem comes along. Because a project manager’s leadership directly affects how team responds to that problem, leadership style is critical during all phases

of the project’s life cycle. Here is a quick review of leadership style that will help different leaders respond to the elements; Transformational leaders want to change the world or at least the world  of  their  organization. A  transformational leader is  visionary leader who thinks in possibilities but believes that those possibilities comes realities. A transactional leader offers incentives and rewards to employees for commitment and efforts in fulfilling the organization goal. Laissez-faire leadership, also known as delegation leadership is a type of leadership style in which leaders are hands-off and allow group members to make decisions. It generally leads to low productivity. Bad leadership is expensive, under the watch of poor leaders and managers, staff morale declines and workers feel less committed to the organization and its mission that tends to lead to work of lesser quality and things getting done more slowly. Poor leadership style can stop management from producing new ideas and solution to problems. It also leads to poor performance in the organization. Going by the array of the above problems associated with bad leadership style on organizational performance. This research study, thus, is investigating the impact of leadership style on

the performance of selected transport companies in Benue State

Nigeria.

1.3    OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The overall objective of this study is to look generally on the impact of leadership style on performance of selected transport companies in Benue State, Nigeria. The main objectives of study include the following:

1.      To examine the impact of transformational leadership style on organizational performance.

2.      To examine the effect of transactional leadership style on organizational performance of transportation company.

3.      To examine the effect of laissez-faire style of leadership on organizational performance of a transportation company.

1.4    RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study shall address the following research questions:

1.      What  is  the  impact  of  transformational  leadership  style  on organizational performance of a transportation company?

2.      What  is  the  impact  of  transactional  leadership  style  on organizational performance of a transportation company?

3.      What is the impact of laissez-faire style of leadership on the organizational performance of a transportation company?

1.5    RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

This study will test the following hypotheses to ascertain the levels of relationships/significance that exist between leadership styles and organizational performance of a transport company:

Ho1:  There is  no significant relationship between transformational leadership style of a transport company and organizational performance.

Ho2: Transactional leadership style of transport company differs significantly from her organizational performance.

Ho3:  There is no significant relationship between laissez-faire style of leadership and organizational performance of a transportation company.

1.6    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This research study is significant in many aspects:

It is hoped that, when the study is successfully completed will serve as a source of policy guidance to the study organization and provide necessary  incentive  for  increasing  performance/productivity of  an

organization. It will help to enlighten the management of the organization on the need and importance of adopting a good leadership style and having effective leaders in the organization. It will educate the employee on their roles and obligations on their performance in the organization and  other related matters. It  will identify the reason why employees react positively and negatively to a particular leadership style of a manager and also aim at discovering what makes workers to be dedicated and committed to their duties.

The  research  will  help  to  challenge  both  the  management  and workers in the organization on both the importance attached to increase performance.

Finally, this work will be of immense benefit as aid and guide to future researcher on leadership style and organizational performance.

1.7    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study centered on the impact of leadership style on the performance of selected transport companies on Benue State, Nigeria. Exclusively, the study is restricted to three transport companies in Benue State, namely; Benue Links Nigeria Ltd, Denjim

Transport Company and Iwiene Nigeria Limited, as a scope of this study.

1.8    LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This study suffers a lot of constraints, which include among others finance, time and attitude of the respondents.

1.9    CONTEXTUAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Leader:  A  leader  is  an  appointed  individual  with  the  ability  to organize other subordinates.

Performance:  The  accomplishment  of  a  given  task  measured

against preset known standard of accuracy, completeness, cost and speed.

Leadership: This is the act of persuading/inspiring subordinates to perform and engage in achieving a goal.

Leadership style: It refers to a kind of relationship that someone uses his rights and method s to make many people work together for a common task.

Organizational Performance: This comprises the actual output or results of an organization as measured against its intended outputs (or goals) and objectives.

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