EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP STYLE ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE:

Abstract

The study intends to assess the effect of leadership style on organization performance specifically at A to Z Textile Mills ltd. Four specific research objectives were used such as to examine the leadership styles adopted at A to Z, to determine the extent to which autocratic, democratic and transactional leadership styles adopted influence organizational performance and to examine the organizations’ attitudes toward the leadership styles adopted at A to Z Textile Mills Ltd. The performance of most of organizations in Tanzania depends on the type of leadership style and the nature of the leaders of organizations. Various efforts have been done to improve performance such as training, hiring of experts from external, adopting new technology and sophisticated machines and motivation to employees, but still the annual targets are not met. This is the evidence that, performance is till poor as a result of leadership style adopted. A case study research design was used where systematic sampling technique was used to sample 97 respondents. A survey questionnaire and interview guide was used to collect data from respondents which were analyzed through descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regression techniques. The study found that, transformational and autocratic leadership styles were adopted in study area since the grand mean score was greater than 3.0 while democratic and laissez faire leadership styles were not adopted in study area. Furthermore, the study found that, transformational and autocratic leadership styles were statistically significant influencing organizational performance with the p<0.05 while democratic and laissez faire leadership styles in study area were not statistically significance influencing organizational performance in study area since the p>0.05. Moreover, the study found that, employees had positive attitude toward the leadership styles applied in A to Z manufacturing company. The study concludes that, leadership styles adopted in study area are important tool in enhancing organizational performance. The study recommends that, leadership styles like democratic styles also should be used in study area so as to motivate employees to improve organizational performance.