EFFECT OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP ON PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN KENYA: CASE OF FAMILY BANK LIMITED
Betsy Jumwa Gonnah - Master of Business Administration, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya
Dr. Kennedy Ogollah - Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Leadership in general has been attributed to play a key role in organizational performance that is measured in various ways from creating shareholders wealth through operational efficiencies to acquisition of business deals that leads to accelerated growth of the organization. Over the years transformational leadership that is associated with a leader who takes over a change process and manages to create a vision that leads the change and ultimately inspires the people to believe in that vision and work towards living up to the same, has gained so much attention. In any transformational process change is inevitable and can make or break an organization. While transformational leadership has been associated with positive results it is key to acknowledge that it can result to dissatisfaction among the members of staff who refuse to acknowledge the change process and depending on the power structures, it can be disastrous to the general performance of the organization. The study looked at Family Bank Limited and specifically the leadership that took over in 2011 and the role their leadership played on the performance of the bank. This study sought to establish the effect that the transformational leadership has on performance while concentrating on variables such as idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation. This study employed descriptive research design. The target population of this study was the 1902 staff working at Family Bank Limited. Stratified proportionate random sampling technique was used to select the sample. From each stratum the study used simple random sampling to select 319 respondents arrived at by adopting Kothari (2004) formula. This study collected primary data using self-administered questionnaires. Before the actual data collection, the researcher conducted a pilot study to determine the reliability of research instruments. The data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of SPSS and a multivariate regression model was employed to study if there is a correlation between transformational leadership and performance. The study concludes that, idealized influence affect performance to a great extent, being a role model to subordinates influences their take on change to a great extent as well as their willingness to work towards the company’s and leaders vision. The study also concludes that inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation affect performance to a great extent. Process improvement should be embedded in the ways of working, Job – rotations, cross - functional relations, creating connection and internal secondments are encouraged, leaders should support subordinates to come up with new ways of doing their jobs, Cross functional relations challenging follower’s ideas and values for solving problems are encouraged and leaders do determine the team’s climate. The study concludes that individual consideration influences performance to very great extent. The study recommends that sharing and teamwork should be encouraged by line managers, line managers should care about personal life of employees hence encouraging work-life balance, line managers and employees should jointly own employee’s development actions and staff should be provided with skills and tools for success. In addition, team leaders should listen and adopt employees’ ideas and inputs, communicate the plan or target numbers clearly and of most importance leaders should keep employees updated on how their actual performance is tracking against the targets. Transformational leaders are therefore necessary in all organizations.
