ABSTRACT

The study the influence of leadership style on employees' performance (A study of Ministry of Finance, Umuahia, Abia State). Specifically, the study determine the relationship between leadership style and employees performance; ascertain factors that affect leadership style in the ministry of finance Umuahia; identify different leadership style adopted by ministry of finance Umuahia and examine the effect of leadership style on employee performance. Primary data sourced from distribution of questionnaires to 226 staff of Ministry of Finance, Abia State were used for the study. A test-re-test was conducted to ensure validity and reliability of the data. The data were presented using simple frequency and percentage and were analyzed using correlation coefficient model, multiple regression and Chi-square model. The result that majority of the respondents with 73.51% posit that the organization adopts democratic leadership style; 47.57% of the respondents strongly agree that leadership style affects employees' performance; majority of the respondents· rate the relationship between leadership style and employee performance positive with 74.,59%; 50.27% of the respondents posits that leadership style relates with employees' performance to a very large extent; majority of the respondents 18.39%, 17.84% and 17.30% agrees' that poor communication, level of education and level of corruption respectively are the core factors affecting leadership style in Ministry of finance Ahia State. The revealed there is positive relationship between leadership style and employees' performance in Ministry of finance Ahia State, Nigeria. The result from factors affecting reveals that poor communication, organizational policy, level of corruption and level of education were significant, thus has significant effect on effective leadership style in Ministry of Finance Abia State. In addition, democratic, autocratic, laissez faire, transformational leadership style, transactional ·leadership styles have significant effect on employee's performance in Ministry of Finance Ahia State. It was recommended that the ministry of Finance, Ahia state and other organizations should evolve a leadership style for the management which should have the best features of different leadership styles. This will ensure that the leadership style is not too dictatorial nor overly tax.