CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Because of their direct impact on employee engagement, leadership styles have emerged as critical to obtaining better organizational performance in today’s corporate environment (Gopal and Chowdhury, 2014). Human resources are one of the essential components of organizational management, according to Gouraki (2013), meaning that human resource motivation is critical to reaching corporate goals and objectives.
According to Gopal and Chowdhury (2014), leadership styles are important variables in generating and maintaining high levels of employee motivation. Understanding the most appropriate and optimal leadership style is therefore critical for guiding, influencing, altering, and managing employee behaviors in a positive direction, resulting in a more motivated workforce. In a similar line, Rumasukun et al. (2015) claim that leadership style is linked to employee motivation. According to the authors, leadership style has a direct impact on employees’ levels of confidence, trust, sense of belonging, and involvement, all of which are important elements in deciding how motivated they are. However, Rashid and Rashid (2012) point out that there is a substantial difference between the public and private sectors in terms of employee motivation. According to Ile (1999:217), the concept of leadership has certain essential consequences, for example, leadership involves others. In other words, followers play a role in leadership. The followers may be superiors or peers, as well as subordinates, who assist define the leader’s standing and make the leadership process possible by their willingness to follow and accept directives from the leader. As a result, leadership necessitates the presence of followers. Leadership entails an unequal distribution of power between group members and leaders. This implies that group members are not helpless; they have the ability to influence group activity in a variety of ways.
Leadership entails the ability to employ various sorts of authority to influence the actions of followers in a variety of ways. According to Appleby (1981:117), leadership also entails accepting responsibility for the group’s achievement of its goals. As a result, it is critical that both parties’ trust and cooperation be demonstrated at all times.
“By satisfying employees with their jobs, leaders play an important role in achieving goals and boosting employee performance.” (p.55) Perhaps the most widely researched organizational component with a potential impact on employee performance is leadership (Cummings and Schwab, 1973).
“It’s a critical issue in every organization since the decisions taken by the leaders can determine whether the company succeeds or fails.” Notably, it is commonly acknowledged that effective organizations require effective leadership, and both employee and organizational performance suffer in direct proportion to this, according to Fiedler and House (1988). Furthermore, it is widely understood that the success of any group of people is primarily determined by the quality of its leadership — excellent leader conduct makes it easier for followers to achieve their goals, which leads to effective performance (Ristow, et al., 1999).
According to Albrecht (2011), performance refers to an organization’s ability to meet a set of pre-determined goals that are specific to its mission.
Diverse leadership styles and frameworks are mentioned in numerous management literatures, including authoritarian leadership, bureaucratic leadership, charismatic leadership, transactional leadership, and transformational leadership, all of which are based on various approaches to leadership. Each leadership style has a different impact on organizational performance, with some helping companies prosper and others hindering their growth, resulting in failure.
While many distinct leadership theories have arisen over the last century, early leadership theories focused on identifying characteristics that distinguished leaders from followers. Other variables, such as situational concerns and skill levels, were examined in later leadership theories. Several ideas on leadership and performance have been developed over time. According to Bratton (2007), there are two sorts of leadership theories: those that are tied to organizational effectiveness and tend to be more prescriptive, and those that are essentially analytic and aimed to better understand the notion. However, categorizing any of the hypotheses as one or the other is not always easy. As a result, the focus of this research is on the impact of leadership styles on employee performance at United Bank of Africa in Ota, Ogun State.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Throughout history, it has been known that the difference between success and failure, whether in business, war, or games, has primarily been ascribed to leadership style. Leadership styles, according to Okenwa and Ugbo (2001:108), are a leader’s behavior patterns when merging organizational and personal interests in the achievement of a goal or objectives.
Effective organizational achievement necessitates a leadership style of management. The extent of subordinate engagement in decision-making and the administrative style of an organization are determined by the leadership styles. Leaders that are overbearing are more likely to lead inefficient organizations. They are the only ones who make decisions.
Participation in decision-making increases a person’s mental and emotional participation in a group setting, encouraging him or her to contribute to and share responsibility for group goals (Chruden and Sherman, 1975).
The problem with most Nigerian commercial banks is that their leaders do not treat their subordinates democratically. In truth, most Nigerian commercial bank leaders are authoritarian in nature. They are in charge and have the organization’s management focused on them. It is not a fleeting fad to require subordinates to participate in decision-making. It is without a doubt the primal urge in males, and it is deeply established in the culture of free men all over the world. Another issue affecting leadership style in Nigerian commercial banks is the competency of those in charge. Some of their appointments are, in most circumstances, illegitimate. What happens to such a group? is having capable leaders who lack the ability or capacity to lead the members to achieve established goals or objectives using the proper leadership style. These issues highlight the necessity for a study of the impact of leadership styles on staff performance at the United Bank of Africa in Ota, Ogun State.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The overall goal of this research is to look into the impact of different leadership styles on employee performance at the United Bank of Africa in Ota, Ogun State. The following are some of the study’s particular goals:
1. To find out what employees think about the leadership style used at United Bank of Africa in Ota, Ogun State.
2. To determine the impact of leadership style on employee job satisfaction at United Bank of Africa in Ota, Ogun State.
3. To investigate the effect of employee motivation at United Bank of Africa in Ota, Ogun State.
4. To determine the impact of a leader’s personality and subordinates’ personalities on leadership style.
5. To see if there is a link between management leadership and performance.
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