Leadership and Economic Development in a Developing Economy: A Critical Look at the Nigeria’s’ Experience (Published)
The ability of a person to effectively and efficiently harness as well as influence the material and human resources of a country is very fundamental to the development of an organisation as a sub-system and all sectors of a country as a whole. In this circumstance it will be appropriate to state unequivocally that leadership (those who occupy public positions) plays a fundamental role in making sure that the lives and welfare of the citizens is improved through the provision of basic infrastructural amenities of life. It is in line with the above assertion that this paper aims at studying the role of leadership in ensuring the development of a country while beaming our search light on a developing economy. The research paper approach adopted for the study conforms to qualitative research, as it reviews the literature relating to organisational behaviour and human resource management. After critical x-ray of related write-ups on the topic under study, we found out that some factors such as corruption, wrong value-system, greed and selfishness, patriotism, ethnicity to name but a few, hinder leaders in developing countries from raising the standard of living of the citizens. Finally the study recommended among other things that Nigeria leaders should be able to see, project and assemble a vision of a desired future for the nation. In addition, they should be selfless, sensitive, moral credent and engaging as these are the fundamental perquisite for mobilising followership, particularly in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multicultural society like Nigeria.
Keywords: Development, Economic development and Developing Economy, Leader, Leadership
CORRUPTION AND SELF-INTEREST IN IGBO LEADERSHIP (Published)
Corruption is an ancient practice that has been traced back to pre-biblical time and made itself known in the ancient civilizations of developed and developing countries. Self-interest affect both the old and the young, man and woman. It is the problem that strata the socio-political and economic structure of any region especially in Igbo land. The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationship between corruption and self-interest in Igbo leadership using SPSS and correlation test. The study also anchored on two theories: the idealistic theory and the anomie theory. The study revealed that the level of corruption and self-interest among Igbo leaders over the years has become a source of embarrassment to Igbos living outside the country and that corruption and self-interest among Igbo leaders has seriously had significant negative affect on the development and services delivery in Igbo land especially in rural areas. The implication of this study is that economy of Igbos cannot grow fast without zero tolerance in corruption and self-interest. The study recommended that the policies that will enhance economic development and reduce the level of corruption and self-interest are expected to be encouraged so that the level of economic growth can be improved in Igbo land. The study also suggests that there should be free and fair election in Igbo land and stops the issue of selection so that the issue of corruption and self-interest will reduce drastically. And that the activities or programmes of the anti-corruption agencies in Nigeria such as the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and related Offences Commission (ICPC) should be strengthened.
Keywords: Correlation, Corruption, EFCC, ICPC, Leadership, SPSS, Self-Interest
Leadership Styles as Recipes for Transformation (Published)
The success of any organization depends on the leader and the leadership style use in driving the organizational processes. This makes leadership studies or researches a recurrent exercise. This study therefore attempt to ascertain the leadership styles used by the commissioner in National Insurance Commission, Abuja-Nigeria to motivate and empowers the staff in the commission as well as explore the leadership-change behaviour exhibited by him in introducing change and managing the resistance thereof in the commission. To achieve this, the study relies solely on interview to generate the necessary information that will help in addressing the objectives since the study is a pilot personality-based research. A 15-item structured open-ended interview questions which derive its content from the objectives were used. Since only the commissioner participated in the study, his responses to the questions were taken as the findings of the study. From his responses, it was found that, he used both the transformational and transactional leadership styles in driving the transformation processes in the commission. His unique skills such as visionary, good listener, initiator, communicator, delegator, mediator and a manager was observed to be instrumental in helping him achieve effectiveness in the commission. It was also observed that, participation, delegation, conducive working environment and competitive remuneration package used by the commissioner empowers and motivate the staff in the commission. Again, strategies such as change needs identification, employee participation, communication, training of change agents and the use of palliatives aided the commissioner in successful change implementation. The associated resistance was managed through vigorous publicity of the need for change, feedback mechanism and coaching among others. The study therefore concludes that the success of any organization depends on the leader and his leadership style or styles
Keywords: Change, Leadership, Motivation, Qualities, Transformation, styles