Abstract

Managers are in charge of leading their employees to higher levels of performance that meet or surpass the organization’s objectives. Managers can use democratic, autocratic, or laissez-faire leadership styles to achieve corporate goals and objectives, depending on the scenario.

Thus, the main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of leadership style on employee work productivity in Buea Council. The specific objectives of the study were to identify the type of leadership practice at Buea Council, to determine the effect of leadership style practice on employees productivity at Buea Council. The study made used of a Descriptive survey design and employed quantitative data analysis.

The study employed a simple random and convenient sampling techniques, to sample 95 respondents using a structure-questionnaire. Collected data were analysed using SPSS (201.0). The findings of the study revealed that, the council practiced all four types of leadership (autocratic, democratic, transactional and laissez-faire leaderships).

Regression analysis show that a significant positive relationship between leadership style practiced at the Buea Council and employees productivity.  The results shows that autocratic leadership style has a negative and insignificant effect on employee’s productivity.

The finding revealed that, democratic, transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles have a positive and a significant effect on employee  productivity. From these results, it could be concluded that leaders or supervisor who is driven by the desire to achieve better performance should engage in more of democratic leadership style and autocratic and laissez-faire leadership style. It was recommended that the management of the Buea Council should encourage managers and supervisory leaders to adopt democratic form of leadership styles in the course of discharging their managerial responsibilities.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The importance of leadership in an organization cannot be overphasized. Leadership is a major element that set successful and unsuccessful organisations and government apart. It plays central role in offering direction and purpose towards achieving goals of the organization. It is also an important element in the social relationship of groups at work.

Leadership is the main factor that determines and shape group productivity, performance and behaviour. When it is correctly applied, each employee enjoys a feeling of strong commitment towards achieving organizational goals.  Regardless of equality of its members, every group will tend to a system in which it will have a leader.

However, organizational goals can never be achieved without proper leadership style in place .it is important to note that the effective performance of an individual is a function of both his personal and characteristics and the individual environment. A careful consideration of knowledge, skills, experience, attitude and motivation of an employee enhance maximum productivity and efficiency in the job. Since leadership deals with the human resource element, it provides the basis for effective utilization of material resources in an organization through individual skills, knowledge and ability.

In today’s competitive environment, organizations expand globally and face a lot of challenges to meet their objectives and to be more successful than others. Leaders play a vital role in the accomplishment of these goals and boost employees’ productivity by satisfying them with their jobs, therefore it grasps the attention of researcher for many years, yet were unable to focus on a single definition.

Many researchers focus on different aspect of leadership.  According to Mintzberg (2010) leadership is the key if trust that comes the respect of others. According to Raelin (2011) leadership is directly connected to the practice to which most people are dedicated.

Initial leadership research took place in the era influenced by the scientific management precept that there is “one best way” to accomplish a given objective. Also, the idea that leadership is an ephemera quality of great men whose personal attributes made them natural leaders was dominated. The research was not directly concerned with understanding leadership style; it was a quest to identify the characteristics that differentiates leaders from followers and ineffective leaders from effective leaders. This line of enquiry as research suggested that personal traits and intelligence play only a small role in leadership effectiveness (Bass, 2008).

Leadership can simply be defined as a process of influencing the activities if an individual or a group towards attainment of set goals.  Leadership is the life wire of an organization.  Douglas McGregor theory X and theory Y is to the view that leader’s attitude towards human nature as a large influence on how that person behave as a leader as a leader and how it affects the employee under the leader. It is how ever important to note that no single leadership style is likely to be effective in all circumstances, leadership style vary based on surroundings and circumstances.

However, instead of concentrating on a single leadership style, leaders can vary their approaches depending on three factors: force in the leader, force in the subordinates and forces in the situation. An effective leader is measured by his ability to manage and withstand forces around him and how to effectively utilize human and material resources to attain organizational objectives.

Douglas McGregor put it clear that there is a close relationship between leaders’ expectation and the resulting performance of subordinates.  He further explains that if leader’s expectations are high, productivity is likely to be high. Leadership shapes the organization strategies including their effectiveness.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The centrality of this study is that, we often think a manager or leader is expected to exhibit a right behaviour towards employees or subordinates. Yet it is realised that in most organisations, there is inflexibility in the leadership styles of most leaders, and yet decisions and policies are imposed on subordinates.

These leaders failed to adjust their leading style to the changing situation of the business environment and this failure is due to the lack of understanding that no particular leadership style can fit all situation and must be flexible to give room for change. Because of this, for effective and efficient organisations leadership, the style must be critically looked out for the performance of employees. The objective of this study is to establish leadership styles and to determine how it affects the performance of employees.

Also, some studies such example Peterson, Smith, Martorana, & Owens (2003) suggest that leadership styles are critically important for an organization to achieve a high level of employees’ performance whereas other studies, such as Meindl, Ehrlich &Dukerich (1985) suggest that leadership styles are not so important in improving employees’ productivity as well as organizational performance. Therefore, these contradictory findings about the leadership styles and employee performance justify the need for the study.

Importantly, we observed that the employees of Buea Council demonstrate poor attitude to work thereby affecting the quality of services provided by the council at the detriment of the general public. Employees’ poor attitude to work could be attributed to poor leadership style. A good leadership style is expected to direct workers behaviours toward achieving organisational predetermined goals. Also, is the lack of absence of an effective line of communication between manager and their employees.

The communication gap between leaders and their subordinates possesses a big problem for several organizations as effective leadership is predicated on communication pattern of both the manager and their subjects. Therefore, this study investigates how different leadership styles (e.g., autocratic, democratic, transactional and liaises faire) affect employees’ work productivity at Buea Council.

1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main Research Question

What is the effect of various leadership styles employed by the Buea Council effects on employee work productivity?

1.3.2 Specific Research Questions

1. What is the effect of an autocratic leadership style on employee productivity?
2. What is the effect of a democratic leadership style on employee productivity?
3. What is the effect of transactional leadership style on employee productivity?
4. What is the effect of a laissez-faire leadership style on employees’ productivity?

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