RESEARCH WORK ON LEADERSHIP THEORY

CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION

Before now the believe held was that leaders were born and not made. Prior to 1920s, it was widely believed that leadership was properly of the individual’s uniqueness, endowed with abilities and traits which made it possible for them to become leaders. Moreover, these abilities and traits were believed to be inherited.

Numerous research works have been carried out exclusively on leadership and the studies have provided different definitions and dimensions of leadership which has resulted into what looks like “Leadership theory Jungle” Research works on leadership at the beginning of this century focused on traits aspects of leadership. Efforts were made to discover the traits or combinations of traits that are required to make a good leader.

            However, studies have revealed that there is no single basic pattern of activities and personality traits that are consistent across leaders. The personality characteristics of leaders are important but those which are essential depends on the circumstances presented. This calls to mind, that someone does not become a leader by virtue of the possession of some combination of traits rather leaders must bear some relevant characteristics in relation to the activities of a good leader.

            There is no institution or organization that can operate and survive without an effective leadership. A leader must be able to adopt a style of leadership at any given time to suit the prevailing circumstances. Leadership style according to Bandom (1959) refers to the pattern of constellation of leadership behaviours that characterize a given leader. The style of leadership chosen by a leader/ manger, creates an atmosphare where workers contribute optimally to the attainment of co-operate objectives, the consideration of leadership style constituted a managerial delimma. The management is optimized by several questions, such as, can anyone undertake leadership role or only a favoured few? Are the favoured few born or made? Is there a particular act to it or a particular style that can be measured? Is it possible to be productive? There have been efforts targeted towards providing answers to the above questions, studies so far on leadership style have come up with two commonly accepted styles of leadership. They are authoritarian or autocratic style and democratic or participatory style.

            An authoritarian leader otherwise known as task oriented leader seeks no assistance in making decisions concerning the organizational setting. He pays greater premium to the organizational demand and little or no attention to individual employees demands. This style of leadership tends to impose high pressure on subordinates through tight works standards and tensed atmosphere. His major goal is to ensure that tasks are preformed as specified and whose job satisfaction is derived mainly from seeing that his goal of effective task performance is achieved above all other things.

            Democratic or participatory style also known as employee oriented leadership style has as its major focus on the inter-personal relationship that exists in an organization their main goal is to ensure that a congenial social environment prevail, which will facilitate emergence of high employee morale and job satisfaction. They do not only provide opportunities for employees to take part in decision making concerning their jobs, but also incorporate their suggestions into the final decision. They are willing to make subordinates feel at is case with them, and help them in their personal problems. Participation has a motivating influence on workers as it requires them to use their conscious mentality in work activities. Also it makes job look interesting and challenging and makes goal conciseness by reducing conflict and increasing co-operation, furthermore it imposes sense of commitment on workers target towards optimal performance. 

Research also on perceived organizational support began with the observation that if managers/ leaders are concerned with their employees involvement/ commitment to the organization, employees are focused on the organizations commitment. For employees the organization serves as an important sources of socio- emotional resources, such as respect, caring and tangible benefits such as pays. Being regarded highly by the organization helps to meet employees needs for approval, esteem and affiliation. Positive valuation by the organization also provides an indication that increased effort will be noted and rewarded. Employees therefore take an active interest in the regard with which they are held by their employer. 

            Organizational theorists and researchers have frequently  alluded to employment as the trade of efforts and loyalty for such socio-emotional benefits as esteem and approval. Social exchange theory was developed to explain the initiation, strengthening and continued maintenance of interpersonal relationship between individuals and their work organizations. Central to social exchange theory is the norm of reciprocacity which obligates people to respond positively to favourable treatment received from others.

            Employees view of employment as a reciprocal exchange relationship may be encouraged by the anthropomorphic attribution of benevolent or malevolent intent to the organization (Levinson 1965). Such personification of the employer as suggested by Levinson is abetted by its legal, moral and financial responsibility for the actions of its agents, by organizational policies, norms and culture that provide continuity  and prescribe role behaviours and by the power that the organization exerts over individual employees. Thus, employee would view many actions by agents of the organization as representing the organization itself. The norm of reciprocacity requires employees to respond positively to favourable treatment from ones employer.

            Hence the research topic, influence of perceived organizational support (POS) and leadership style on Job involvement of workers in an organization.
            Organizations survive on the basis of the leadership style adopted and the employees perceived organizational support. Workers achieve high level of performance depending on how. Involved they are to the organization or how committed they are to the organization. Workers performance in an organization can be attributed to the extents to which they are involved in their work.
            When workers achieve high level of performance the organization thrives but when their performances are poor, the organization suffers. Workers performances are as a result of many complex factors. When observing the level of performance achieved by any two workers difference in their achievements can usually be seen, sometimes these differences are the result of disparities in innate skills and in some cases, they are due to differential treatment in their salaries or because of different perception of the Job itself.

            Organizational effectiveness which is the out come of job involvement of workers is heavily dependent on the style of leadership and employees perceived organizational support. A seemingly good leadership style and high perceived organizational support creates a climate and structures that are conducive and permits group coherence tending towards the achievement and accomplishment of organizational goals with minimal energy input. The climate in an organization presents the characteristics of the actions taken consciously or unconsciously within the organization which affects human behaviour, it could be the personality or impression of the organization as perceived by its members. It is therefore important at this point to note that it is not necessarily the real climate (environment) that influence human behaiour, rather it is the climate represented by leaders in organizations, their activities as well as the conditions as perceived by the workers. These include the type of supervision given and received, the nature and direction of communication flow, the perceived reward or punishment structure, the attainment of employees socio emotional needs, the benefits that the employer will grant to the employee e.t.c. 

            These are after manipulated and measured and form the basis for defining organizational environment, it also serves as a source of identifying pressure constraint that affect job involvement of workers in an organization.
            Therefore, it is pertinent that climate and organizational effectiveness are specified in terns of individual or group responses to facets of performance, job satisfaction, job commitment and job involvement. moreover, there is not best or most suitable climate, rather. It is the responsibility of the management to determine what type of climate will be most suitable or appropriate for the organization. the relationship between climate and achievement of organizational effectiveness depends on the degree of control the workers have over attainment of the goal activities.
            It is believed that perceived organizational support and leadership style affects work effectiveness which is an outcome of job involvement.

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