Effect of leadership style on job performance in public institutions: a case of the academic affairs directorate of the University of Ghana

Abstract

The study sought to examine the existence of the various leadership styles and its impact on the job performance at the various units of the Academic Affairs Directorate of the University of Ghana. Close ended questionnaires were used for the collection of the data. The close ended questionnaires were administered to sixty-one (61) staff members who were selected using the stratified sampling technique from the various Units. Nine (9) of the Unit Heads of the Directorate were also given questionnaires to respond to. Chi square and Spearman rank correlation coefficient tests were used to analyse the effect of leadership styles on job performances at a significant level of 0.05. It was observed that the charismatic, transformational, strategic, and transactional styles of leadership are the main leadership styles that do exist at the Directorate. Though all these leadership styles do exist, the charismatic and transactional styles seemed to be more predominant. The charismatic style of leadership was observed to have much positive impact on job performance in terms of accuracy of work output, and customer service delivery. The transactional style of leadership was also found to help build good teams for easy flow of information, ideas and services thus creating an atmosphere for higher productivity. In view of these findings, it is recommended that both charismatic and transactional styles of leadership should be encouraged and strengthened at the Directorate to enhance job performance.