The Relationship between Transformational Leadership Style and Performance of Chartered Universities in Kenya
Abstract
University education plays a critical role in promoting technological advancements and improving the country's ability to capitalize economically. The main objective of the study was to establish the relationship between Transformational leadership style on performance of chartered universities in Kenya. Positivistic philosophy approach was adopted with a cross-sectional survey research design. The target populations for this study were 49 chartered universities in Kenya. Respondents comprised of university teaching staff, and non-teaching staff in Kenyan chartered universities. Teaching staff who participated in the study comprised of professors, Associate Professors, Senior Lecturers, Lecturers, Assistant Lectures, and Tutorial Fellows. For non-teaching staff that was selected for the study are top management levels, middle level, and lower-level staff. For a comparative analysis, each University was targeted, and the sample was drawn from each participating institution. The study adopted 10% due to fact that 10 percent presented adequate sample and therefore final sample size of 3851 was recalculated using Yamane formula to arrive at the suitable sample population that adopted for the final study. The study sample size was 362 that included all the 49-chartered universities. The questionnaires were distributed equally in all participating institution. The researcher utilized questionnaire as the essential instrument for information gathering. Questionnaires were formatted to contain sections reflecting the study variables. Quantitative data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results showed that when transformational leadership style through idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, is held constant, performance of chartered Universities will remain at 2.120. At the same time, an increase in idealized influence by one unit leads to an increase in performance of chartered universities by 0.100 units with a p-value of 0.000<0.05 while an increase in one unit of inspirational motivation and selection leads to an increase in performance of chartered universities by 0.090 with a p-value of 0.000<0.05. When intellectual stimulation increases by one unit, performance of chartered universities increases by 0.080 with a p-value of 0.001<0.05. Lastly, an increase in individualized consideration by one unit leads to an increase in performance of chartered universities by 0.101 units with a p-value of 0.000<0.05. The study thus, rejected the null hypothesis. The study concluded that there is a positive significant relationship between leadership style and performance of chartered Universities in Kenya and a unit increase in leadership style index lead to an increase in performance index. Therefore, the study recommends that university management board should embrace transformational leaders to manage and run the universities. This is due to the fact that the practices of transformation leadership influence the organizational performance and no organization can elude the confrontation of change. Therefore, effective leadership is vital to redressing spasmodic business environment while sustaining the firm's competitive position in the marketplace.
Keywords: Transformational Leadership Style, Performance, Chartered Universities & Kenya
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