The Role of Leadership in Emplyee Performance Essay Example

The Role of Leadership in Emplyee Performance Essay International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology Vol. 2 No. 5; August 2012 Impact of Leadership Development on Employees Performance (Case Study: Employees of Customs Headquarters) Dr. Javad Mehrabi Department of Public Management, Qazvin Branch Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran Dr.Mohammad Taheri Roozbehani Department of Management, Boroojerd Branch Islamic Azad University, Boroojerd , Iran Shirin Naseri Department of Management, Boroojerd Branch Islamic Azad University, Boroojerd, Iran Batool Samangooei Postgraduate of Business Management Payame- Nour University, Tehran Shahre Ray Unit and Educational Services Expert in University of Isfahan, Iran Abstract Objective: The present survey has been conducted to study the role of leadership development on employees performance in Customs headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran.Methodology: Descriptive-correlation method was used in this survey and the statistical population included employees of Customs headquarters equal to six-hundred seventy eight (678) persons. Sample volume was selected through random class sampling method that was equal to two-hundred fifty (250) persons. Questionnaire was used to collect the required data and data analysis was accomplished using inferential statistics tests such as Pierson correlation coefficient and step by step regression analysis in addition to descriptive statistics indexes such as mean and standard deviation.Findings: Findings reveal that there is a significant and positive relationship among leadership development and its dimensions with employees performance. Conclusion: It is concluded that authorization, education and development and empowerment have the highest impact on employees performance respectively. Key words: leadership development, coaching, education and development, empowerment, participation in decision-making, authorization, performanceIntroduction Leadership is a mysterious process that has been considered similarly by common peo ple, scientists and researchers since the far past. It is one of the major five tasks of managers in some guidance texts. Leadership means art of influencing the subordinates so that they conduct pre-determined activities in the framework of certain purposes voluntarily and eagerly (Khalili Shurini, 1995: 15-19).It seems that when the leader is able to mobilize and coordinate human forces by emphasizing human relations, his action would be led to satisfaction and improvement of employees performance automatically. Today governmental and private organizations intend to enhance their service quality and this wont be fulfilled unless with a good management, suitable leadership and moving towards knowledge and technology advancement (Rezaeeian, 2005: 230-247). 54 Â © Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA www. ijbhtnet. com As utilizing employees abilities is not possible without effective leadership existence of leadership as the driving factor in employees motivation, creating perspectives, enhancing employees capability, education and development of the organizational forces and compiling purposes and programs are very important to obtain organizational objectives (Moradi, 2009).Major task of Customs as one of the governmental organizations is to control imports and exports legally in order to get duties, preventing to import non-standard and unhygienic products, regulating importation and exportation of some products to regulate the internal market and etc.Violating the above cases would be led to social and cultural abnormalities in addition to their harmful impacts on the internal production and economic stagnation through changing the culture and taste of consumers towards nonstandard and smuggled products and creates disorganization in the economic system by dominance of foreign manufacturers on the internal markets and increases unemployment and the related problems. Since accurate and effective implementation of Customs regulations and avoiding the above probl ems has a direct relationship with Customs eadership and performance of its employees as economic frontiers of the country it is intended in the present survey to answer the following questions given to the above issues. Is there any relationship between leadership development and employees performance in Customs headquarters in Iran? Is there any relationship among leadership development dimensions and employees performance? Which dimension of leadership development has the highest impact on employees performance?Research literature Leadership Leadership is the ability to encourage others to try eagerly in order to obtain certain purposes (Davis, 2010: 423). It is a process in which management of the organization tries to facilitate his tasks to fulfill organizational purposes by creating motivation and an effective relation and encourages employees to conduct their tasks eagerly and enthusiastically (Alvani, 1996: 137-138). Leadership development: past, present and future Leadersh ip development is enhancement of abilities and creating perspective for motivating and directing of individuals towards determined purposes.It includes components such as education and development, participation of individuals in decision-making, coaching, job empowerment and authorization (Ollrich, Gold Smith ; Karter, 2005). Leadership development has obtained achievements in two previous decades among which we can refer increasing of management development methods and coordination among the management and employees. Believing that leadership is something beyond management becomes more popular increasingly and causes more studies to be focused on leadership competencies and problems regarding non-coordination in working affairs and life (Hernez-Broome ; Hughes, 2009).Leadership development at work environment Nowadays innovators represent skills and techniques regarding leadership development through methods such as educational programs and coaching and apply them in real issues. People could obtain important skills by combining such directions and real commercial conditions and thus it is possible for organizations to find important, synchronous and related issues and deal with them. Finally purpose of leadership development includes action not knowledge.Therefore, leadership development at present means providing learning opportunities for people through work not keeping them aloof from the work environment and obliging them to learning. Moreover, the best experience of organizations is to find out the leadership role as a key factor in all job levels and that they are committed to create effective leaders across their organizations. Developing more individual and better leaders is not the only focusing point of leadership development although this issue is still very important.Leadership is increasingly defined in a way that it is not just related to leaders acts rather it is a process which creates a new generation of leaders and effective relations that their focus is on leaders and colleagues interaction (Lajevardi, 2011). Organizational performance Organizational performance is obtaining organizational and social purposes or going beyond them and conducting responsibilities undertaken by people (Heresy and Blanchard, 1996: 504). 155 International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology Vol. 2 No. 5; August 2012Research hypotheses Primary hypothesis There is a relationship between leadership development and employees performance. Secondary hypotheses 1- There is a relationship between coaching and employees performance. 2- There is a relationship between education and development and employees performance. 3- There is a relationship between empowerment and employees performance. 4- There is a relationship between participation in decision-making and employees performance. 5- There is a relationship between authorization and employees performance.Conceptual model of the survey In this survey leadership development and its d imensions (coaching, education and development, empowerment, participation in decision-making and authorization) are regarded as independent variables and performance is regarded as dependent variable. Leadership development Coaching Performance Education and development Empowerment Participation in decision-making Authorization Research methodology The present survey was conducted using descriptive-correlation method. Statistical population included employees of Customs headquarters in 2011.Volume of the statistical population was equal to 678 persons among which 386 persons were male and 292 persons were female. Sample volume was determined equal to 250 persons using Krejcie and Morgan table and relative class sampling method was used. Therefore, portion of each class (male and female employees) was first calculated in the statistical population and the same ratio was observed in the sample too. Statistical sample of employees contains 142 males and 108 females by gender separatio n. Two researcher self-made questionnaires were used for leadership development and performance to collect the required data.Although these questionnaires were standard and normalized, views of advisor and guiding professors were reviewed to determine validity of the questionnaires. Cronbach alpha coefficients of leadership development and employees performance questionnaires ware equal to 0. 89 and 0. 86 respectively which illustrated high reliability of both questionnaires. Results were analyzed through SPSS software. Analyzing results As variables under study follow normal distribution Pierson correlation coefficient is used in this survey to study the relationship among variables.Secondary hypotheses Hypothesis 1: H0: there is no positive relationship between coaching and employees performance. H1: there is a positive relationship between coaching and employees performance. 156 Â © Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA www. ijbhtnet. com Table 1- Pierson correlation coefficient betwe en coaching and employees performance Correlation between coaching and employees performance Pierson correlation coefficient (r) +0. 276 Number (N) 250 Significance level (P) Plt;0. 001 Result Significantpositive Given to results of table (1) because the calculated amount for Pierson correlation coefficient is significant at level ? 0. 01 it is inferred that hypothesis H0 regarding nonexistence of relation is rejected by 99% confidence and hypothesis H1 regarding existence of relation between the two variables is confirmed. Hypothesis 2: H0: there is no positive relationship between education and development and employees performance. H1: there is a positive relationship between education and development and employees performance. Table 2- Pierson correlation coefficient between education and development and employees performance Correlation between education and development and employees performance Pierson correlation coefficient (r) +0. 03 Number (N) 250 Significance level (P) Pl t;0. 001 Result Significantpositive Given to results of table (2) because the calculated amount for Pierson correlation coefficient is significant at level ? = 0. 01 it is inferred that hypothesis H0 regarding nonexistence of relation is rejected by 99% confidence and hypothesis H1 regarding existence of relation between the two variables is confirmed. Hypothesis 3: H0: there is no positive relationship between empowerment and employees performance. H1: there is a positive relationship between empowerment and employees performance.Table 3- Pierson correlation coefficient between empowerment and employees performance Correlation between empowerment and employees performance Pierson correlation coefficient (r) +0. 469 Number (N) 250 Significance level (P) Plt;0. 001 Result Significantpositive Given to results of table (3) because the calculated amount for Pierson correlation coefficient is significant at level ? = 0. 01 it is inferred that hypothesis H0 regarding nonexistence of relat ion is rejected by 99% confidence and hypothesis H1 regarding existence of relation between the two variables is confirmed.Hypothesis 4: H0: there is no positive relationship between participation in decision-making and employees performance. H1: there is a positive relationship between participation in decision-making and employees performance. Table 4- Pierson correlation coefficient between participation in decision-making and employees performance Correlation between participation in decisionmaking and employees performance Pierson correlation coefficient (r) +0. 498 Number (N) 250 Significance level (P) Plt;0. 001 Result SignificantpositiveGiven to results of table (4) because the calculated amount for Pierson correlation coefficient is significant at level ? = 0. 01 it is inferred that hypothesis H0 regarding nonexistence of relation is rejected by 99% confidence and hypothesis H1 regarding existence of relation between the two variables is confirmed. 157 International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology Vol. 2 No. 5; August 2012 Hypothesis 5: H0: there is no positive relationship between authorization and employees performance. H1: there is a positive relationship between authorization and employees performance.Table 5- Pierson correlation coefficient between authorization and employees performance Correlation between authorization and employees performance Pierson correlation coefficient (r) +0. 618 Number (N) 250 Significance level (P) Plt;0. 001 Result Significantpositive Given to results of table (5) because the calculated amount for Pierson correlation coefficient is significant at level ? = 0. 01 it is inferred that hypothesis H0 regarding nonexistence of relation is rejected by 99% confidence and hypothesis H1 regarding existence of relation between the two variables is confirmed.Primary hypothesis: H0: there is no positive relationship between leadership development and employees performance. H1: there is a positive relationship betwe en leadership development and employees performance. Table 6- Pierson correlation coefficient between leadership development and employees performance Correlation between leadership development and employees performance Pierson correlation coefficient (r) +0. 610 Number (N) 250 Significance level (P) Plt;0. 001 Result Significantpositive Given to results of table (6) because the calculated amount for Pierson correlation coefficient is significant at level ? 0. 01 it is inferred that hypothesis H0 regarding nonexistence of relation is rejected by 99% confidence and hypothesis H1 regarding existence of relation between the two variables is confirmed. Multiple regression analysis of employees performance based on leadership development dimensions In this section predictive impact of predictor variables (coaching, education and development, empowerment, participation in decision-making and authorization) on the criterion variable (employees performance) is explained and studied using st ep by step multiple regression analysis.Results are illustrated in table (7). Table 7- multiple regression analysis of employees performance based on leadership development dimensions Test statistics Predictor variables B Remained authorization in education and analysis development empowerment Not coaching inserted participation in in decisionanalysis making 0. 446 0. 200 0. 138 0. 037 0. 030 B Sig P;lt;0. 001 P=0. 001 P=0. 021 P=0. 550 P=0. 664 Beta Significance level of beta Multiple correlation coefficient R 0. 64 Coefficient of determination R2 0. 434 Fstatistic Significance level of Fstatistic F Sig P;lt;0. 001 F 64. 680 As results of table (7) show variables of authorization, education and development and empowerment are remained in analysis among the inserted predictor variables based on the highest significance level respectively (P;lt;0. 01, P;lt;0. 05) and variables of coaching and participation in decision-making are not inserted in analysis (P;gt;0. 05). 158 Â © Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA www. ijbhtnet. comAuthorization, education and development and empowerment explain employees performance score significantly (Plt;0. 01, R2= 0. 434, F= 64. 680). These variables are important in predicting employees performance and totally they have allocated 43% of variance of employees performance score to themselves. Positive coefficients of calculated beta (? ) for authorization (? = 0. 45), education and development (? = 0. 20) and empowerment (? = 0. 14) reveal that employees performance score is increased by increasing scores of these variables.Therefore it is inferred that authorization, education and development and empowerment have the highest impact on employees performance respectively. Conclusion Obtained results of analyzing statistical data demonstrate that there is a positive and significant relationship among leadership development and its dimensions. Authorization and education and development among leadership development dimensions are str ong correlators of employees performance.On the other hand, obtained results of regression analysis show variables of authorization, education and development and empowerment are remained in analysis among predictor variables (leadership development dimensions) based on the highest significance level and coaching and participation in decision-making are not inserted in analysis. Authorization, education and development and empowerment variables explain employees performance score significantly. These variables are important in predicting employees performance.Therefore, it is concluded that authorization, education and development and empowerment have the highest impact on employees performance respectively. Recommendations It is recommended to managers as instructors to create and accelerate learning to improve employees performance; train and develop employees through methods such as job cycle, assistance and etc; try to empower employees; provide the ground for employees particip ation in decision-makings by making individuals familiar with affairs and their manner and it is necessary to prioritize authorization methods in their management.Also it is recommended to conduct this survey topic in other institutions and organizations and study the relationship among leadership development and productivity and efficiency. References Alvani, S. M, 1996, General management, Tehran: SAMT Publishing Co. David J. L. (2000). A Determination of Interpersonal Interaction Expectations in International Buyer-Seller . Relationships. Ph. D. Dissertation, Blacksburg, Virginia Dissenzu, David. 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