Abstract

This study aim to examine “The Effects of Leadership Styles on Employee Performance: The Case of Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea”. Its specific objectives are to determine the effect of autocratic leadership style on Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea, to analyse the effect of democratic leadership style on Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea and to examine the effects of laissez-faire leadership style on Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea.

The study adopted a descriptive survey design and the random sampling technique was used to choose the sample businesses that will represent our target population. Primary data was collected with the use of 40 questionnaires that was answered by accountants, stock keepers and other department staffs of the target businesses.

The data collected were classified and analyzed using descriptive statistics and the multiple regression analysis with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The hypothesis was tested through a correlation test, and it revealed that there is a moderate positive relationship between the variables.

This result showed that Leadership Styles enhances Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea.  The study found that the effect of autocratic leadership style on Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea in Buea was significant at 5% significance level since it calculated p-value of 0.045 was found to be lesser than 5% level of significance.

With this result, the null hypothesis was rejected and the study concluded that, there exist a significant relationship between autocratic leadership style and Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea. The study also found that the effect of democratic leadership style on Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea was significant at 5% significance level since it calculated p-value of 0.021 was found to be lesser than 5% level of significance.

With this result, the null hypothesis was rejected and the study concluded that, there exist a significant relationship between democratic leadership style and Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea. Again, the study found that the effect of laissez-faire leadership style on Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea was significant at 5% significance level since it calculated p-value of 0.023 was found to be lesser than 5% level of significance.

With this result, the null hypothesis was rejected and the study concluded that, there exist a significant relationship between laissez-faire leadership style and Employee Performance at Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea.

Finally, findings shows that the major form of leadership that managers or leaders employed at the Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea was the Autocratic leadership style in which leaders’ express authority to subordinates by making all the rule, not involving employees at decision making, continuous monitoring of employees and used of rewards system to punished and rewards employees job output.

Therefore, the study thus recommends that the management of Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea in Buea 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

In the society today, thousands of individual are appointed or elected to shoulder the role and responsibilities of leadership. Leadership is practice in schools and colleges, factories and farms, business enterprises , dispensaries and hospitals, religious bodies, governments, in the civil and military organizations of a country and public life, at all levels, in fact leadership is essential in all works of life. These leaders should promote unity, harmony, strength, prosperity and happiness in the community.

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 drive 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 directions and psychological satisfaction to get the best from them, this direction can only come from leaders. In fact, leadership is very critical for all organization in realizing their set objectives. Since leadership is a key factor for improving the performance of many if not all organization and the success or failure of an organization depends on the effectiveness of leadership at all levels.

According to (Kiue, 2010), “Leadership is critically important because it affects the existing or future condition of the organization. Any organization requires effective leaders who can positively influence their followers by increasing employee performance and organizational commitment in order to achieve organizational goal.

(Daniel N. & Josse R, 2017) discussed good leaders motivates employees and motivated employees does not only increase his or her job performance and commitment within an organization, but also goes beyond the job requirements thus increasing the organization’s general performance and making it more profitable. The worker for an organization is the most important asset that should be owned and is considered by the management. Humans create goals, conduct innovation, and achieve organizational objectives. Human resources park creativity in every organization.

Leadership comes with followership; leadership can either discourage or motivate followership. The style of leadership determines the overall performance of the followers, especially in an organization. In order words, if the leadership style in an organization is good, it can positively boost the performance of the employees in that organization. Research by Schyns & Sanders (2007) posits that one of the major employee’s job dissatisfaction is poor leadership in that organization. To wax stronger and participate in today’s competitive global market, world politics and governments, organizations must seek good leaders and leadership styles.

Effective leadership styles accelerate the development of most organization. It has been widely accepted that effective organization requires effective leadership and that organizational performance will suffer in direct proportion to neglect of this Fiedler and House (1988). Thus leadership style plays a very well important role in enhancing employee job satisfaction, work motivation and work performance.

According to Hersey & Blanchard (1984), leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward a goal achievement in a given situation. Hence, leadership in this study is related to the person who is appointed by the organization or owner to follow up the whole or sub activities of the organization. However, the focus of this research is Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea.

Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea is a privately owned company established by Mr. Njei Louis Tebi in the year 1998 with its head office in Molyko Buea. It has a hotel, supermarket where it sells several baked or pastry stuffs and many others. It is well known as one of the best bakery in Buea with it branches across Buea,  Bamenda and Douala. It has been noticed that some branches attained their goals while some do not and this maybe as a result of the type of leadership style implemented by the branch manager thus instead of focusing on a single leadership style, leaders can adapt their approaches based on three factors; the leader’s own forces, the forces of the subordinates, and the forces of the situation itself.

An effective leader is defined by his or her ability to manage and withstand the forces that surrounds him or her, as well as their ability to effectively utilize human and material resources to achieve organizational objectives. McGregor made it clear that the expectations of leaders and the performance of subordinates are closely related. As he goes on to explain, when leaders have high expectations of their employees, they are more likely to be productive.

 1.2 Statement of the Problem

Kehinde and Banjo (2014) emphasized on the importance of leaders in an organization in today’s competitive environment, organization expand and face a lot of challenges in meeting their objectives and chase to be more successful from others. Just like Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea which has grown from a one branched bakery to several branches across Buea, Bamenda, and Douala to date still struggling to fit in the retail market and compete with other giants bakeries in the same industry.

In this study, the researcher sought to develop an interest in this topic from the complaint given by one of the branch manager and stock controller of Njeiforbi  Bakery on the increased drop of employees performance because they are unwilling to work, unwilling to follow and respect simple instructions given to them and most often the employees post a lot of problems towards the achievement of the organizational goal.

Leadership style affects everyone in the organization from senior management to temporary/ interns/contract employees. In this case of Njeiforbi Bakery, only a fraction of employees receives bonuses which is purely pegged on performance implying that many employees failed to meet the set target of the organization’s goal, this clearly shows that the performance has not been to the expected standards

One of the issues that the researcher has also observed is the infidelity of the leadership style exhibited by the majority of the branch managers. They are unable to adapt their leadership style in response to shifting circumstances and business environments.

Also the absence of an effective line of communication between managers and their employees is another issue which has leads to the increased drop of employee’s performance in some of this branches and as a result not being able to attain the organizational goal. In deed Richard et al (2010) states that, leadership is the ability to influence people towards the attainment of goals. This captures the idea that leaders are involved with other people in achievement of goals.

This is an area of concern that prompted the researcher to carry out a study on this topic. The idea is to evaluate employees’ performance and examine if it is affected by employees’ perception of leadership style that the manager adopts. This research will assess the effect of leadership style on employee’s performance in Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea.

 1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main Research Question

What are the effects of leadership styles on employee’s performance in Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea?

1.3.2 Specific Research Questions

1. To what extent does the autocratic leadership style affect employee performance in Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea?
2. How does the democratic leadership style affect employee performance in Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea?
3. How does a laissez-faire leadership style affect employee performance in Njeiforbi Bakery Ltd Buea?

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