CHAPTER ONE
1:0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
- Background to the Study
Human resource is of one of the many imputs that go into the production of goods and/services in an organisation both private and public. The human resource is very sensitive to changes in an organisation internal and external environments. Changes can be described as movement from an established pattern to new method of doing things or new leadership, new markets of products. We may not recognise change, it may occure so slowly as with such rapidity that we are taken unawares by it,yet change is constant and dynamic phenonmeon (Cole,2009).
Changed is caused by a wide variety factors and forces. The highly competitive market place in the private and also in many respects the public sectors of the economy, the tremendous accelerating rate of technological development, the highly volatile changes that are occurring in both the physical and social environment are some of the critical factors associated with change. In order to remain in existence organisations must respond to these factors in a more proactive manner otherwise they will die in the long run, (Cole, 2009).
The above factors also propelled by different forces. The completion for resources is increasing. Inputs and markets are becoming fewer in number and size as a result of the static nature of the resources. The consequences are that organisation must increasingly rush to get their needs. These phenomenon calls for change in strategic policies and practices of both public and private sector organisations. In human resource terms it is becoming clear that people have to work harder, go for high quality output and also be flexible in-order to survive competition. (Daver, 2006).
The technological factors are perhaps the most prominent because of change in organisations. The accumulation of scientific knowledge has changed the method of production, computed mechanisation of processing systems, space-craft, invention of new drugs and other inputs, nuclear technology etc. are clear examples of what technology does to organisations. People (human resources) are perhaps the most widely affected by technological changes. Lay off needs of training, transfers, faster speed of working, high pay package etc. are consequences of change in an organisation. The physical and social environments are also changing rapidly .The energy crisis and concern for ecological and environmental protection dominates life in contemporary society , social changes are seen in socio-cultural developments, openness and honesty are being stressed and authority and responsibility is being recognised on the basis of expertise .All the above factors and forces have tremendous influence on organisation and human resources there in it, therefore strategic in harmonising in the totality of the workforce in an organisation towards meeting the changes engendered by change (Mintzberg Henry A (1981).
Planning human resources help in facilitate the accomplishment of the enterprises objectives and purpose and integrates the organisational division into one and sees it as a system that can only operate in totality. Its positive and visionary leadership for the various intervention and workforce within an organisation to be well integrated and harmonised to achieving the organisational goals maintain concession and high level of productivity (Adamolekun, 2005).
1:2 Statement of the Problem
In the world today we are experiencing different forms of changes in science technology. New discovery in science for instance has become almost a daily experience and scientists are not resting in their quest to ensure for scientific questions. Even in management of organisations, the need to make maximum use of manager’s time and make work more productive, many management experts have tried to find scientific approaches to management issues and the shortest possible way of improving management productivity, hence the discovery of the “one minute theory of management in the United States.
The technological changes also have its own effect on the management of the organisation. Take for instance we are in the age of information technology with the introduction of websites and internet services making it easier for organisation to access information they need to take in taking management decisions. The rapid changes in the socio-economic environment are still too important in the way and manner an organisation should be structured to sufficiently respond to the changes and to efficiently use its human resources to enhance productivity and achieve organisational goal. The Nigerian Navy as an organisation that represents the interest of the general public has not been responding appropriately to the changes engendered by scientific and technological changes enumerated above hence its inability to measure up to expected standard of performance. The phenomenon of human relation and international standard is an essential that determines the success or otherwise of an organisation. The Nigerian Navy as an organisation has not been measuring up to the standard of practice and achievements because of the porous implanted and unscientific way and manners, human resource issues are being managed.
The issue of lack of purposeful manpower planning has been a major problem facing the Nigerian Navy like other organisations and because there is no good manpower planning, the source is flooded with all kind of persons and the result is internal crises and conflicts among employees, thereby making the system to be unproductive. Looking at the Nigerian Navy, one can clearly see the problem of unproductively to a large extent is not that of unproductive of skilled and technical persons to do a good job and achieve maximum outputs, the problem more lies in the inability of Nigerian Navy to harness and harmonize the individual personnel skills and abilities, creating element in organisation enabling environment to enable employees to achieve higher level of productivity and efficiency, in other words, team building and teamwork as an important element in organisational productivity has not been given the kind of emphasis it requires in the Nigerian Navy as an organisation.. Many at time, the employees in other sectors or department do not see the relationship in the work they do as that of employees in other sectors or departments and how it affects the other and the effects on the entire system lack of team building approach to work among naval staffs reduces the level of productivity and increase self-centred attitudes and unproductive practices. And because the public enterprises are not always probity driven and problem motivated. It is easy for employees to hide their inefficiencies because of parameters that are used to measure performance.
The leadership of Nigerian Navy is mostly politically motivated and gets entangled with internal politicking which invariably distorts the vision and direction of the organisation. Because leadership wants to satisfy its political interest and that of its allies, many a time personnel decisions are taken haphazardly and employees are made to pursue tasks that would promote their own interest and not the interest of Nigerian Navy. The Nigerian Navy is characterised by inefficiency, lack of focus or direction, inappropriate policy formulation strategies, lack of purposeful and committed leadership, lack of clear standard of measurement performance, indiscipline and laziness, among naval staffs, and bureaucratic tendencies among others. It is glaring to see public servant today display lack of commitment to work, corruptive and other forms of malpractices in government ministries and parastatals. No more genuine patriotism and commence to work ethnic and handwork (Yalokwu P.O, 1991).
All the above factors are inter-relatively working together to make the Nigerian Navy organisation efficiently and an unproductive organisation. The system to work efficiently in the present day society with the rapid changes taking place in its internal and external environment there is the need for some re-engineering and repositioning of services. More so ability of the civil servant to deliver the good because of the unpleasant past experiences (McGregor D, 1978)
1:3 Research Questions
The following research questions were developed to guide the study:
- What leadership style that the Nigerian have in place
- How effective is the leadership styles in the Nigerian Navy.
- What is the impact that these leadership styles have had on employee performance?
- Identify the adequacy or relevance of leadership styles contents to the need of employees
1:4. Aim and Objectives of the Study
The study seeks to fulfil the following objectives:
- To highlight some leaders theories which would guide leaders in the Nigerian Navy establishment to monitor the employees towards achieving desired objectives.
- To examine the extent to which Nigerian leaders meet the needs of other followers to enhance performance.
- To know which particular style that will bring about effective performance.
- It will be a source of feedback to the directed audience; managers are in position to lead others in Nigerian Navy.
1:5 Significance of the Study
The issue of leadership and work-team are paramount concepts in any organisations. The kind of leadership attitude and approach of an organisation invariably determine its direction and growth in the same vein, the ability of the organisation to harmonise its workforce which is still a question of the leadership is organised, and build work-teams that will enhance productivity, efficiency and cohesiveness will determine the continuous existence or otherwise of the organisation.
Therefore in carrying out this study, some key factors and ingredients that will be helpful in bringing the right leadership that will build the organisational workforce and make a productive asset that will be put into focus. This study is also significant in that it will be able to provide analytical explanations about the inter-related factors in both internal and external environments of the organisation that are playing interactive roles to making organisations what they are in terms of their outputs and services.
The dynamic nature of the external environment in which it generates complete its (organisation) to seek better and more effective ways of planning the organisation to achieve maximum productivity and capacity utilisation. The significance of this study is also emphasises the present-more of the democratic government to sanitise the public sector through the anti-corruption law and other instruments put in place. Thus places upon the public enterprise the responsibility to x-ray its activities and re-position itself for positive changes in its strategies and approaches in order to effectively manage its human resources to achieve the desired level of productivity.
1:6 Scope of the Study
This study seeks to examine various factors and elements that contribute to positive leadership and enable organisation to achieve higher level of productivity in the use of its human resources planning and the ways and manner the human resources can be organised to achieve optimal capacity utilisation and high level of productivity,
The study scope is the role and impact that leadership style has on the performance of the employees of Nigerian Navy, using naval unit and Nigerian Navy Simulation Centre, NDA as the focus point. The naval unit and Nigerian Simulation Centre constitute an important location and hold a large population of employees.
The leadership of any organisation plays a very significance role in the management of the organisation, it is the leadership that creates the vision and provides the direction for the organisation and carries along the employees in achieving their vision. The study is going to look at what good and prostate leadership means to an organisation that wants to regress and remain relevant.
It is also an important part of this study to examine the organisation in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness. The characteristics and attributes of an effective and efficient organisation. The Nigerian Navy as a major focus in this study will be examined in terms of its nature, vision, activities and challenges particularly in the issue of human resource planning and management. Because of the many problem and challenges that have bedevilled the Nigerian Navy as an organisation in the part and the loss of public confidence in this study be devoted to looking for ways of restoring dignity and identity to the organisation. Structural and operational difficulties as it relate to human resource. Management shall be identified with a view to finding some possible solution to them.
The invitation of this study is based on the fact that the human element in the organisation is the primary focus and pre-occupation. The study is therefore is a facts finding and analysis of human element in the entire organisation, it is not intended that the study will x-ray the entire organisation as an entity neither it is to make scientific and logical exploration into the world of organisational management.
1:7 Assumptions
The study is based on the following assumptions:
- That productivity level of workers is enhanced when leadership is positive and motivating.
- That the attitudes of leadership determine the attitude of employees to work and work ethics.
- That building productive work teams is a function of leadership
- That employee is more productive when they work together as a team.
1:8 Limitation of the Study
The limitation of this is also predicted upon the instrument of data collection and the attitudes and perception of the respondents. It is recognised that the instruments being employed to collect data have own deficiencies. That for instance, the use of questionnaires can it creates some difficulties to certain categories of employees in understanding and invariably can distort the kind of information being passed. The limitation as regards to the attitude and perceptions of the respondents are explained by the fact that some other may be doing so based on their personal feelings and emotions (subjectivity) rather than the reality of the situation (objectivity).
Another limitation of the study is the aspect of data collection. The collection of data is carried out manually and therefore is time involving and there is the possibility of missing out some critical data, a situation that can be avoided if it were carried out electronically.
1:9 Definitions of Key Terms
(1) Productivity: Productivity is an average measure of the efficiency of production. It can be expressed as the ratio of output to inputs used in the production process, i.e. output per unit of input. When all outputs and inputs are included in the productivity measure it is called total productivity. Outputs and inputs are defined in the total productivity measure as their economic values. The value of outputs minus the value of inputs is a measure of the income generated in a production process. It is a measure of total efficiency of a production process and as such the objective to be maximized in production process.
Productivity measures that use one or more inputs or factors, but not all factors, are called partial productivities. A common example in economics is labour productivity, usually expressed as output per hour. At the company level, typical partial productivity measures are such things as worker hours, materials or energy per unit of production.
(2) Leadership: Leadership is both a research area and a practical skill encompassing the ability of an individual or organization to “lead” or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The literature debates various viewpoints: contrasting Eastern and Western approaches to leadership and also (within the West) US vs. European approaches. US academic environments define leadership as “a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. Leadership seen from a European and non-academic perspective encompasses a view of a leader who can be moved not only by communitarian goals but also by the search for personal power.
(3); Positive-Leadership: Positive leadership uses scientific evidence and theoretically-grounded principles to promote outcome such as thriving at work, interpersonal flourishing, virtuous behaviours, positive emotions, and energising networks.
Positive leadership has at least three areas of emphasis
Firstly, positive leadership enables “positively deviant” performance. This means its focus is on outcomes that dramatically exceed common or expected performance.
Next, positive leadership has an affirmative bias. Its orientation is toward enabling thriving and flourishing at least as much as addressing obstacles and impediments.
Finally, positive leadership focuses on facilitating the best of the human condition, or on virtuousness. It is based on a eudemonic assumption-that is, that an inclination exists in all human system towards achieving the best of human condition-so the focus is on unlocking this potential in organisations.
(4) Work-team: A group of employees that work semi autonomously on recurring tasks. Work teams are most useful where job content changes frequently and employees with limited skills and a specific set of duties are unable to cope.
(5) Efficiency: Efficiency can be defined as the ability to do the right thing. It an input-output concept that implies not only doing things correctly but also with minimum use of resources such as time, materials, money and labour.
(6) Effectiveness: Effectiveness can be defined as getting the right thing done. It involves doing those things that are necessary for the accomplishment of the organisational goals and objectives.
(7) Delegation: In management, delegation of authority refers to the process by which a supervisor gives a subordinate the authority to do the supervisors jobs. It is the assignment of authority and responsibility to another person for the carrying out of specific activities.
(8) Communication: It can be defined as a process of transferring information from one person (sender) to another (receiver) for the purpose of establishing a commonness or oneness of thought. By this definition communication is strictly something that one person cannot do alone. It is a two-way affair and in between the sender and the receiver are the element of message and the medium through which the sender communicates to the receiver.
(9) Vision: Vision can be defined as a coherent view of the future that forms an over-arching objective for the organisation.
(10) Total Quality Management: Can be defined as the activities and process undertaken by an enterprise to achieve customer’s satisfaction by getting right first, through continuous improvement and by motivating employees
(11) Management: Management can be defined simply as the art of getting things done i.e. getting tasks performance and goals accomplished through people.
(12) Bench-marking: It is the art of finding out why some companies or organisations can perform certain task much better than others. It is a new trend in marketing aimed at enhancing the organisational performance and competitive edge. The central focus of bench-marking is to copy what is being done well and to improve on it.
(13) Conflict: Conflict is the context of an organisation is the disagreement that occurs between two or more organisational members or units/group arising from the fact that they must share scarce resource or work activities of form the fact that they have different status, goals, values, or perceptions.
(14) Business-process re-engineering: Business process re-engineering is a business strategy which is designed to fundamentally change the work is performed in order to achieve radical quantum leap performance improvements in quality, speed and cost. The emphasis of re-engineering is on fundamental relating.
(15) 150,000: This is a quality management system that guaranteed consistence of approach through the use of written procedures, system and its review. It is a quality certification scheme and assurance that the organisation on which has attained the status has in place a quality management system that is verified as being high standard and consistency too.
(16) Empowerment: Empowerment means giving encouragement to people (employees) to become more involved in decision making and activities that affect their jobs. It is a vital element of the modern business environment which leads the organisation to getting closer to the customer, improving service delivery, continues innovation, increased efficiency and competitive edge. Empowerment is one of the new ways manager seek to relate with employees.
(17) Decision Making: It is a process that involves in considering the various alternatives of doing things and deciding on which way to go i.e. making choices concerning resource application, business opportunities and problems.
(18) Motivation: Motivation is a process of ensuring that the urges, drives, desires, aspirations, springs of needs of employees are observed and harnessed as a way of influencing them to perform as a level high enough for the achievement of the goals of the enterprise.
(19) Coordination: It can be defined as a process of ensuring that the activities and contributions of all of those working in the enterprise are properly combined and aligned to form a balance and harmonious, effective unit.
(20) Staffing: It is a process of making sure that the organisation has the work-force it requires and with the right skills and knowledge, and that all employees/staff are properly trimmed and groomed for current and future challenges.
(21) Performance: It is referred to as the actual job done or activities carried out with a specific period of time.
(22) Formal Organisation: It is systems established for exploit purpose of achieving certain goals, and process both rules, designed to anticipate and shape behaviour, and a formal status structure with clearly mark lines of communications and authority.
1:10 Organisation of the Study
In this study there are six (6) chapters. Chapter one which is the introductory part dealt with basic information about the study which includes development trends and analysis, problem statement, significance of the study and defining of key concepts in the study. Chapter two of the study dealt with the issues of literature reviews, fact finding and general data collection on the subject of the study, identifying who are a leader and the relevance of leaders in an organisation, ways of achieving productivity and other related issues.
Chapter three of the study opens up the introduction, research design and philosophy. It also includes the instruments of data collection and data analysis technique
Chapter four is the historical background of the Nigerian Navy, in the study attempts were made to look into leadership styles generally and Nigeria in particular under leadership styles, its objectives structure holds for leadership system. Organisation/Contextual architecture of the study area, statistical review of existing trend and implication of the study.
Chapter five of the study opens up with the introduction to research methodology, research design and philosophy. The instrument of data collection and data analysis, and interpretation, by phthisis treating and findings, while last chapter (chapter six) dealt with providing and summarizes for the findings and conclusions, drawing inferences and providing some recommendation for future improvement in the Nigerian Navy as an organisation. The last but not the least is implications for future study
References
Ademolekun L. (2005), Public Administration African main issues and selected countries studies spectrum books Ltd Ibadan.
Augustus Adebayo (1981), Principle and Practice of Public Administration in Nigeria, Spectrum Book Ltd (Ibadan).
Cole, G.A (2009), Personnel and Human Resource Management, Book Power, Thomas Ronnie, London.
Chandan J.S, (1986), Fundamentals of Modern Management, New Delhi: Vani Educational Books
Daver, K.S (2006), Personnel Management and Industrial Relations Vikas Pub House PVT Ltd, New Delhi.
Ekwealor, Ferdinand Ekwealor (2007), Fundamentals of Public Administration, Abbot books Ltd, Onitsha.
Fillipo B.E (1980), Personnel Management: New York Mc-Graw Hill Inc.
McGregor D. (1978), ‘’An uneasy look at Performance appraisal’’Havard Business Review. May/June pp. 89-94.
Mintzberg H. (1981), Organisational Design: Fashion or Fit’’Havard Business Review (January-February), pp. 103-117
Yalokwu P.O (1991), ‘’Performance Evaluation in Schools’’ Journal of Nigerian Educational Research Association. Vols, 9 and 10.Pp.77-83
DISCLAIMER: All project works, files and documents posted on this website, eProjectTopics.com are the property/copyright of their respective owners. They are for research reference/guidance purposes only and some of the works may be crowd-sourced. Please don’t submit someone’s work as your own to avoid plagiarism and its consequences. Use it as a reference/citation/guidance purpose only and not copy the work word for word (verbatim). The paper should be used as a guide or framework for your own paper. The contents of this paper should be able to help you in generating new ideas and thoughts for your own study. eProjectTopics.com is a repository of research works where works are uploaded for research guidance. Our aim of providing this work is to help you eradicate the stress of going from one school library to another in search of research materials. This is a legal service because all tertiary institutions permit their students to read previous works, projects, books, articles, journals or papers while developing their own works. This is where the need for literature review comes in. “What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. The paid subscription on eProjectTopics.com is a means by which the website is maintained to support Open Education. If you see your work posted here by any means, and you want it to be removed/credited, please contact us with the web address link to the work. We will reply to and honour every request. Please notice it may take up to 24 – 48 hours to process your request.
