Analysing Leadership Styles and Performance of Nigerian Banks

Leadership is a strong tool that can enhance the survival of a company or facilities its failure. The leadership style and decision making process of many giant banks in Nigeria has created a space for questioning in this current year. The Nigerian banking sector forms a strong part of the Nigerian financial sector.

The Nigerian banking sector has witnessed a lot of changes over the past 20 years and this has helped to restore public confidence in these banks. The operation of these banks is supervised by the Apex bank, which is saddled with the supervisory and regulatory role within the economy.

The central bank of Nigeria in 2002, reviewed the operations of Nigerian banks and saw a need to strengthen these banks and as such requested these banks to recapitalise, this required most banks to raise their capital bases to NGN25 billion(Neville and Laurence, 2008). This was deemed as a difficult feat for the banks and as such effected a few mergers and acquisitions within the rank and files of the banks. This reduced the number of banks operating within the Nigeria economy from 89 to 25 (Abdullahi, n.d.). These 25 surviving banks were regarded as mega banks within the African economy.

Over the past few years, there have been changes in the overall operations of the banks that operate within the Nigerian economy and this has been closely monitored by the Central Bank of Nigeria (The Apex Bank) to ensure that banking operations are strictly adhered/comply to. In the past 10 years, there have been variations in the performance of the banks within the Nigerian economy, despite the recapitalisation of the banks. Some banks have performed incredibly well, while others have not. The recent audit of the Nigerian bank further revealed many flaws of some banks and their unhealthy state.

This study will look into the leadership styles of some banks (healthy and unhealthy) within the Nigerian economy and will evaluate the impact of leadership styles on these banks.

This study will consider the pattern of leadership and find out if there is a relationship between the style of leadership and the performance of the banks within the Nigerian economy.

Literature review

Leadership will be classified effective depending on style through which it is driven. There have been different views regarding leadership styles or processes that determine its effectiveness. According to Neylor (1999, p.523) “leadership is the process of influencing people towards achievement of organisational goals”, he argued that there are three things a leader must also put into consideration which are people, goals and influence. Neylor (1999) agrees that leadership should be the act of influencing and interacting with others in order to achieve set goals which can be done by any individual.

ENOS (2007, p.153) argued that there are five different leadership styles or category that leaders happen to find themselves, being a task master who delegates all his power to the job and very little for the people (carefree), a comforter who is after the comfort of people and their interest rather than the job, regulator who believes his duty is to give orders and assign jobs but cares less if the work is done and the wellbeing of the people involved, a manipulator who tries to leverage his power to care (but not too much) for both the job and the people involved and lastly as a developer who is always keen about the wellbeing of the people involved and the job being done. He states that there is high possibility of the manipulator and the developer getting a positive response (especially the developer) from goals to achieve.

However it has been argued that leadership is either ethical or unethical (Yulk, 2005), he also suggested criteria to test how ethical a leadership is. He states that if leadership does not portray attitude of serving the followers and the organisation, trying to balance and integrate them, encouraging critical evaluation to solving problems, willingness to take personal risks and make necessary decisions, developing a vision considering the followers needs, values and ideas, is classified unethical.

Grint (1997) a lecturer in Management Studies and Fellow in Organisational Behaviour in Oxford University has set out four qualities and nature of leadership which he called “leadership behaviour”. He argued that a leader should be determined to make objectives, he must know the orders to give, and he must be able to lay down rules in order to get work done. He further stated that a leader must be able to manipulate its resources and make good use of it. Then the ability of a leader to coordinate people, which is a key instrument in an organisation. He concluded with the ability to put all the three into action to make it actualise.

Earlier on, it has been stated that after the audit of Nigerian banks by CBN some banks still remained unhealthy. For the purpose of this dissertation I will like to evaluate the leadership styles or nature of these banks.

Inference

Based on my knowledge and experience with banks in Nigeria, I think leadership plays a great role in their performance although there are other factors that contribute to the performance of these banks. In choosing my case study I have thought of banks in Nigeria to evaluate taking note of availability of materials but I don’t want to be specific now until I am allocated a supervisor to put more light and advice on my dissertation.

Research Objectives

The overall objective of this research is to have an in-depth look at leadership styles and use some theories of leadership to evaluate the unhealthy banks in Nigeria, evaluate the relationship between leadership styles and company performance, and other factors that influence company’s performance (competition, political factor, employee-employer relationship and company policy)

Methods and Models

Study research design- questioners will be administered in order to help find out the leadership styles within the banks in question, effect of completion on the bank, employee-employer relationship and employee’s view on the company’s policy.

Sampling – questioners will be distributed cutting across the senior management, middle management and junior management. Also information will be gotten from CBN websites and websites of banks in question.

Data collection methods- data received from questioners will be analysed and interpreted with a chi square and interviews will be carried out. Notes will be taken by hand at interviews and I anticipate 75% rate response from questioners. Secondary data will be collected from CBN website, banks websites and literatures on leadership styles.

Research Ethics and Permission

In carrying out my research all ethical policy will be adhered to. To ensure confidentiality, participant’s names will not be included in questioners. I will be analysing data collected personally and interviews will be carried out personally. Due to the fact that I am using primary and secondary data for this study, I do not think I should be faced with deception or stress.

Time Scale and Resources

January- sampling of literatures

February- restructuring with supervisor

March- further search for literature

April- further search for literature

May- first draft of literature review

June- write literature review and draft of questioner

July- prepare and administer questioners and conduct interviews

August- analyse data and start draft dissertation

September- submission of draft and correction

October- final draft and correction and submission of final copy

I will be paying for everything that will be needed through the research.

Research Questions

This study is aimed at answering the following questions as it progresses.

Can leadership style affect the performance and the survival of a company?

Can leadership and decision making process be effectively monitored to reduce the risks of insolvency in banks in Nigeria?

The aim of this study is to critically evaluate the impact of effective leadership style and its effect on the company performance and survival. These can be classified into three parts, profitability, competition and maintaining market position/share.