The impact of leadership styles on the organizational performance of CDC Tiko

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Risk, rapid changes and technological advancement in the global business environment is continuously increasing. Organisations are not only concerned about improving their current processes and offerings but also with finding potential opportunities for their organizational growth (Scheepers & Storm, 2019, p.352). To improve organizational performance continuously and remain competitive in such harsh environments, organisations must change their routines (Prasad & Junni, 2016, p. 1542). Leadership is one of the main determinants of organisational organizational performance. Thus profound attention has been dedicated to leadership styles for better performance recently.

Leadership style involves the mixture of traits, skills, behaviours and characteristics that leaders practice to interact their subordinates so on get work done. Bowler and Seashore (1996, p.83) enumerated the basic functions of leadership to include: Enhancing others feeling of self-esteem and support, Facilitating an interaction such that group members develop a close and mutually satisfying relationship, Goal emphasis for high performance and achievements, and Work facilitation such that targets are achieved through such activities as scheduling, coordinating, planning and the effective application of knowledge.

Akram and Chung (2020, p.60), noted that Leadership style represents what people are “doing” and “behaving.” Leadership has many aspects and there are many ways to describe leadership styles such as dictatorial, bureaucratic, charismatic, and participative. To them, in common there are three main leadership styles which include; Autocratic Leadership which the leader is often seen as someone that is well aware of his status and has little faith or trust in the subordinates, the Democratic leadership style which is a kind of leadership style in which members of the group play a more participatory part in the decision-making process, and lastly, the Laissez Faire leadership style which means putting fellow employees throughout the manner they like without compliance to any strict rules or protocols to complete projects and jobs.

It is expected therefore that in every organization, there should be a leader who will in addition to planning, organize and coordinate work, mobilize, inspire and utilize available human and material resources optimally for effective organizational growth and development. Leadership often emerges in a social context, in that it does not exist in a vacuum, but a phenomenon for people and by the people. The objectives of leadership are products of clear vision and its actions are dictated by great focus and a sense of mission. The way and manner leadership is conducted in any given situation, depends on the interplay of such factors as individual personality, work demand and the exigencies of the environment (Tanjung, 2020, P.101).

Abiso, Okuboyejo, Ilori and Adeogun (2016, p.579), noted that a reliable leader is what is needed now and that to be reliable means living up to peoples’ expectations in all ramifications. Adopting the right style of leadership helps executive managers to establish time-tested relationships, count-on and respect, involve and motivate their subordinates and ensure a conducive task environment. This conducive task environment give room for higher employee productivity, thus organizational performance.

Organizational Performance is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon in the business literature. Organizational performance comprises of the results of an organization or the actual outputs of an organization, which can be measured against intended outputs, goals and objectives. The organizational performance involves three areas associated with the organization – financial performance (return on investments, profits etc.), shareholder return (economic value added, total shareholder etc.) and the product/service market performance (market share, sales etc.) (Gavrea, et al., 2011, P.293). For better performance, the appropriate leadership style must be put in place.

Different empirical investigations have provided insights to leadership styles and organizational performance. Amongst these is the findings of Ebrahim Hasan (2018, p.87) that revealed that revealed that charismatic, bureaucratic and transactional leadership styles have negative relationship with organizational performance, while Transformational, autocratic, and democratic leadership styles positively affect organizational performance. Akram and Chung (2020, p.67), revealed that leadership styles definitely have a strong relationship towards a company’s success, as the way the leader manages his employees will ultimately decide the performance of the organization itself.

Theories also, have provided contributive knowledge to leadership style and organization performance. Amongst these is Fiedler’s contingency theory that was developed in 1946, which asserted that; the leader’s ability to lead is contingent upon various situational factors, including the leaders preferred style, the capabilities and behaviors of workers that depend heavily on the situational factors. Also, the behavioural theory of Deutsch that was propounded in the year 1940, which  advocate for a fundamental change in leadership dealt with examining the type of behaviour leaders demonstrated in an endeavour to assess effective leadership.

Globally, the performance of businesses has been limited by the COVID 19 pandemic. The Cameroonian economy has not been left out of this. This has contributed to the ineffectiveness of leaders in most organisations. Couple with the socio-economic crisis heating the southwest and northwest regions of the country, it has thus cripple organizational performance. CDC Tiko, which is at the heart of the Nation has been at the centre of this limitation. This has left the performance of the organization question. Thus, giving from for an investigation on leadership styles and organizational performance, case of CDC Tiko.

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT 

The COVID 19 pandemic and the socio political crises heating the two English regions of Cameroon have affected the organisational performance of most business organization in the within these Region.  Most companies have been forced to close down their operations as a result of the pandemic and the crises. Thus, the performance of companies has been affected massively by the wave of the pandemic and the crises. Knowing fully well that the aim of most organizational is to performance better, crippling their performance means crippling their operations. To bounce back for better performance, these organization have engaged on good practices that could better ease the achievement of these goals. Amongst these, is their leadership styles. 

Thus, this has given a huge need for effective leaders for coordinating and motivating the employees (Vigoda-Gadot, 2012, p.680). Unfortunately, some companies do not take account of the leadership style adopted by their managers, this has posed a lot of thread to their performance. based on this, this study is out to investigate the impact of these leadership styles on organizational performance. There are several types of leadership styles such as transformational leadership, transactional leadership, autocratic, democratic leadership, participative leadership style, etc. The leadership styles chosen for the study are autocratic, democratic and laissez faire. This is because, these leadership styles  are amongst the most practiced leadership styles throughout the globe and Cameroon in particular.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.3.1 General research question

What is the impact of leadership styles on the organizational performance of CDC Tiko?

1.3.2 Specific research questions

– To what extent does autocratic leadership style affect the organizational performance of CDC Tiko?

 – Does laissez-faire leadership style affect the organizational performance of CDC Tiko?

– Is there any relationship between democratic leadership style and the organizational performance of CDC Tiko?