EFFECT OF LEADERSHIP STYLES ON EMPLOYEES’ PERFORMANCE IN AN ORGANIZATION

ABSTRACT The study examined the effects of leadership styles on employee performance in an organization. The specific objective of this study is to examine the effect of democratic leadership, transactional leadership and autocratic leadership on employees’ performance in an organization. The study adopted descriptive design method; the population of the study consist of 180 staff Ado Grammar School, AUD Muslim Grammar School and Government College, Ado-Ekiti. The sample size was determined using stratified random sampling method, the total population was used as sample size. Questionnaires was used as method of gathering data from which only 124 was completed and returned out of 180 questionnaires distributed. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistic, the hypotheses were tested using Chi-Square method. The findings showed that democratic leadership style has impacts on motivation and job satisfaction of employees in an organization, the findings also indicated that transactional leadership has effect on employee performance in the organization and autocratic leadership adopted by the management has effect on employee performance. Therefore, this study concluded that leadership style contributes immensely to the performance of employee and perfect managerial functions of an organization. Hence, the study recommends that there should be implementation of regular training and development programs that focus on democratic leadership skills for all levels of management. This will enable managers to become more adept at using democratic leadership styles and improve employee performance in the organization.