Effective leadership is crucial for providing employees with direction and emotional support to extract maximum effort from them. Consequently, it is essential for an organisation to prioritise and emphasise the appropriate leadership style to enhance overall employee performance. This concept holds significant importance as it profoundly impacts the current and future sustainability and productivity of an organisation. Leadership plays a crucial role in shaping the vision and mission of an organisation, as well as in defining and establishing an organisations objectives, strategies, procedures, and effective means to achieve those objectives (Makambe and Moeng, 2019).
Leadership style is perceived as a blend of various characteristics, traits, and behaviours used by leaders in their interactions with employees. It represents the managerial behaviour pattern aimed at aligning organisational or personal interests to achieve specific objectives (Mitonga_Monga and Coetzee, 2012). Leadership qualities such as honesty, patriotism, intelligence, courage, and dedication are vital. For organisations to thrive and grow, leaders should embrace a participative leadership style. It is crucial for leaders to foster a sense of ownership, direction, and belonging among employees. The success or failure of any organisation focuses on the leadership and the adopted leadership styles (Anyaegbunam and Anekwe, 2021).
Beauty and Aigbogun (2022) classified five leadership styles: transformational leadership, transactional leadership, laissez-faire leadership, servant leadership, and virtual leadership.
Transformational – transformational leaders aim to reshape the capabilities, skills, beliefs, and values of their employees by striving to motivate them while influencing their assumptions and attitude toward work
Transactional – transactional leaders focus on close supervision, error identification, and corrective measures to maintain the status quo and maximise performance
Laissez-faire – laissez-faire leaders allocate power and authority to employees, allowing them to set organisational objectives and to make decisions without interference
Servant – servant leadership emphasises teamwork, service, trust-building, active listening, and a future-oriented approach to work performance
Virtual – virtual leaders guide and serve their employees to achieve organisational or individual goals. Virtual leadership, is however, applicable to both traditional and remote teams, and centers around team-building, employee motivation, goal attainment, and overall performance.
In order to enhance employee performance, leadership is characterised by idealised influence, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation. A well-executed leadership style contributes to an enhanced employee performance by nurturing employee productivity that results in high-performing employees and where contingent rewards can effectively address poor employee performance. The allowance of minimal supervision limiting leader intervention and granting employees autonomy in decision-making and problem-solving, contributes greatly to effective performance management and increased productivity. Employee performance is further enhanced through leadership style by effective communication, a commitment to employee growth, awareness created by leaders, persuasion, and empathetic leaders play an instrumental role in administering and improving employee performance (Mohamed et al., 2018).
Common challenges affecting organisational performance across include poor work attitudes among the workforce and the inefficiency or ineffectiveness of leaders. The leadership style implemented by an organisation significantly influences its operational success. Leadership styles play a vital role in ensuring exceptional organisational performance, with factors such as adequate motivation, a conducive work environment, fair compensation, and efficient communication between managers and employees being key contributors to this objective. Effective planning and organisation of work are also crucial elements since it plays a pivotal role in either enhancing or hindering the interest and commitment of employees within the organisation. Organisational theorists emphasise that effective leadership styles are a crucial factor contributing to overall success or failure of an organisation. Since there is no universally applicable leadership style, it is advisable for management to employ diverse techniques and methods as per the situation. This approach encourages employees to exert greater effort towards achieving organisational goals and further enhancing performance (Akparep et al., 2019).
References
Akparep, J. Y., Jengre, E., & Mogre, A. A. (2019, May 18). The influence of leadership style on organisational performance at TumaKavi Development Association. Open Journal of Leadership, 8, 1-22. doi:https://doi.org/10.4236/ojl.2019.81001
Anyaegbunam, C. E., & Anekwe, E. A. (2021, October). Investigate the effect of leadership style on emokoyee’s performance. International Academy Journal of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurial Studies, 8(2), 175-184. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjq3eyivtWEAxXBWkEAHXrtCgoQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.arcnjournals.org%2Fimages%2FASA-IAJMMES-8-3-88.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2fz5S-W0cnSn0OcIGjQflX&opi=89978449
Beauty, M., & Aigbogun, O. (2022, January). Effects of leadership styles on employee performance: A case study of Turnall Holdings LTD, Harare. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(1), 289-305. doi:10.6007/IJARBSS/v12-i1/12037
Makambe, U., & Moeng, G. J. M. (2019). The effects of leadership styles on employee performance: A case of a selected commercial bank in Botswana. Annals of Management and Organisational Research, 1(1), 39-50. doi:https://doi.org/10.35912/amor.v1i1.274
Mitonga-Monga, J., & Coetzee, M. (2012, April 12). Perceived leadership style and employee participation. African Journal of Business Management, 6(15), 5389-5398. doi:10.5897/AJBM11.2443
Mohamed, H. A., Datche, E., & Kisingu, T. (2018, May-June). Effect of leadership styles on employee performance in the Somali National Civil Service Commission. International Journal of Novel Research in Humanity and Social Sciences, 5(3), 56-69. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiy4oLJytWEAxXJS0EAHYCiBYwQFnoECAgQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.noveltyjournals.com%2Fupload%2Fpaper%2FEFFECT%2520OF%2520LEADERSHIP-1394.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3jQfc4-WYj6oXLgqUm47
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