University of Medical Sciences and Technology

Faculty of Business Administration

Program Name:

Research Proposal

Student Information:
Name: Maab Mohmed Basheri

Batch number and year of admission: Batch 14 (2015)

Student Index Number: Bu-2015-009

Telephone Number: 0962018222

E-mail: Maabxbxbx@gmail.com

Project Title:

THE IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLES ON EMPLOYEES

PERFORMANCE IN SUDANESE BANKS

(Case study at Sudanese French Bank)

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 Chapter One

Introduction

Background:

Leadership is a process by which an executive can direct, guide and influence the
behavior and work of others toward the accomplishment of specific goals in a given
situation. Leadership is an ability of a manager to induce the subordinates to work with
confidence and zeal. Leadership can be defined as the capacity to influence a group
realization of the goal. Leaders are required to develop the future vision, and to motivate
the organizational members to want to achieve the visions and to improve the
performance.1
Leadership is simply “the art of influencing people so that they will strive willingly
towards the achievement of goals” (Igbaekemen, 2014). Leadership plays a crucial role
in creating an enthusiastic atmosphere and culture in an organization (Alghazo & Al-
Anazi, 2016). Hurduzue (2015) proclaimed that effective leadership style could
promote excellence in the development of the members of the organization. According
to Skoogh (2014), it is safe to say that leadership has played an important role since the
dawn of history of mankind.
Bennis (1989), “On Becoming a Leader”, state that it is the skill of influencing people to
work enthusiastically toward goals identified for being for the common good”, and assert
that; the key to leadership is accomplishing the task at hand while building relationships.
Tasks are important for the day to day survival of the organizations, while developing
people and team are important for the for the long- range performance of the
organization. This implies that leaders must build a good relationship with their
subordinate in order to achieve their goals.

1 Adair J (2002) Effective strategic leadership. Macmillan Publishers Limited, London.

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This research sought to investigate and understand the impact of different leadership
styles (autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire) and their effects on employee
performance in organization. After completion the research on this topic, this research
will be as a guide for employees to identify which leadership style is good for them in
terms of work satisfaction and the success of their careers as well as for leaders to
understand which types of leadership impacts on employee performance and how
employees can also be motivated through proper leadership.

Problem statement:

Writers on management science recognized that there must be leadership for any identity
with power that is properly used to get a job done. Leadership exercise of power may
differ substantially from one organization to another, and from culture to culture
depending on the style of leadership whether autocratic, democratic, or laissez-faire
leadership. Autocratic leadership style where decisions are made by leader in isolation of
employees and expressed as direct command nowadays is not suitable as employees of
nowadays are not prepared to do just what they are told to do without questions.

Attempts to enforce decision result in alienation, low morale and poor productivity.
Regarding the democratic leadership style, although it advocates employee’s participation
and opinion on topics before decisions are made, some subordinates may not be willing
to be involved or to share responsibility. On the other hand, if the leader is focusing on
inspiring change in members of organization, there may be also resistance or rejection for
that change by some subordinate.

The challenge is how the leader can create conducive environment where all members of
the organization work in harmony to achieve the organization objectives.

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Objectives of the Research:

General Objective: To determine the impact of leadership styles on employee’s

performance.

Specific Objectives:

1) To determine the leadership style used in Sudanese French Bank.

2) To find out the extent to which leadership styles and practices affect employee’s
performance.
3) To find out if changing the leadership style will influence employee’s
performance.
4) To determine the correlation between leadership style and employee’s
performance.

The Research Questions:

1. What is the leadership style used in Sudanese French Bank?

2. To what extent do leadership styles and practices affect workers’ performance?
3. Will change in the leadership style influence employee’s performance?
4. What is the correlation between leadership style and employee performance?
5. What leadership style should the manager adopt in order to witness an increase in
each subordinate performance that will lead to accomplishing the organizational
goals?

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The Research Hypotheses:

Under the research hypotheses, the researcher will denote it as;

H0: Leadership styles have no significant influence on employee’s performance.
H1: Leadership style has a significant influence on employee’s performance.

Basic Literature Review:

According to Adair (2002), “Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined
objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds a group together and to
improve their performance and to direct them towards goals”.
Kourdi J (1999) suggests that leadership is to deal and cope with change, focusing on the
long-term and the big picture, not always doing to safe himself in fact to take risks, and
concentrating on people and their values, not just the bottom line.
Collins J (1995) published an article in the Harvard Business Review about leadership
Good to Great. In that article, titled leadership, “the most powerfully transforming
executives possess a paradoxical mixture of personal humility and professional will they
are timid and ferocious. They are focus on empowerment rather than control for the
development of employees’ performance.
The business writer Daniel G (2002) categorized different leadership styles. They
suggested that leadership styles could be explained on a scale ranging from autocratic
through democratic to participative to show the degree of authority and decision makes
power of leaders and employees.
There are broadly three types of leadership styles according to Carter M (2008),
Autocratic/Authoritarian leaders, Democratic/Passive leaders, and Participative leaders.

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As elaborate by Myron Rush and Cole the participative style of leadership has a greater
positive effect on employee performance in which situation employee feel power and
confidence in doing their job and in making different decisions. And in autocratic style
leaders only have the authority to take decisions in which employees’ feels inferior in
doing jobs and decisions. In democratic style employee have to some extent discretionary
power to do work so their performance is better than in autocratic style.
Mwita (2000) state that performance is a major multi-dimensional construct aimed at
achieving results and has a strong link to strategic goals of an organization. In an attempt
for managers to achieve these results (strategic goals), most of them have cause
subordinates to become curious about the special traits, behavior and styles that their
leaders might exhibit at their job side. If this is the case is there any correlation then
between the way leaders in an organization should lead and manage their employees and
their performance? This research will try to answer this question.

The Research Methodology:

Data collection tools and Sources of Data:

In this research Sudanese French Bank will be taken as a case study. Descriptive
analytical methodology will be adopted and the research will be built on two approaches:

1. Theoretical approach: approach where reliance will be on secondary data. Data

will be collected through visiting different libraries seeking relevant information
regarding the topic of the research from references, periodicals previous studies,
articles in magazines and Internet.
2. Empirical approach: included primary data where questionnaire will be based on a
5-part likert scale (i.e. From 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree).

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Methods of analysis:

Data analysis will be conducted also using SPSS (Statistical Package of Solid Sciences)
to test the hypothesis of the research.

Sample size:

The questionnaire will be distributed to 20 respondents including (employees, managers,

supervisors, and others).

Sampling Techniques:

Simple Random Sampling technique will be used.

The Research Limitations:

There are various aspects that may lead to limit the accuracy of research outcomes. Due
to time constraints, material and financial resources, the research will be limited and
confined only to Sudanese French Bank. Another point of concern is regarding sampling.
As selecting a sample cannot access the complete population, there can be differences in
assumptions made on the part of complete population. Further other limitations involve
the interest of respondents in answering the questions. They might be influenced to
answer it without concerning over its seriousness and fill it so as to save their time. As
the sample selected is from 100 respondents, it cannot justify the impact of leadership
style on employee performance issue on the base from the same organization because of
large number of population cannot be studied with a sample. Also the respondents might
involve in biasness while answering as they might not feel comfortable in agreeing to the
problems they face in the organization. The sample of the study might be another
limitation.

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 Time plan (Gantt chart) (When?):

week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 week 5 week 6 week 7 week 8 week 9

Literature Review
Questionnaire Design
Data Collection
Data Analysis

Summary:

Leadership as we use the term in this work refers to behavior undertaken within the
context of an organization that influence the ways in which other organizational members
behave. It could be observed that leadership and management envisages deeply into what
the organization can achieve if the quality of recognition is accorded to them.
The study sought to investigate the effect of leadership styles practiced in an organization
and their effect on employee performance. The purpose of this research is to understand
the effect of different leadership styles autocratic, democratic, and participative style- on
employee performance. The objectives that will guide the research are; to determine the
leadership style used in Sudanese French Bank, to find out the extent to which leadership
styles and practices affect employee’s performance, to find out if changing the leadership
style will influence employee’s performance, and to determine the correlation between
leadership style and employee’s performance.
The research will follow the qualitative approaches, Secondary research will be
integrated. The reason for this is to be able to provide adequate discussion for the readers
that will help them understand more about the issue and the different variables that
involve with it. On the other hand, sources in secondary research will include previous
research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content. Existing findings on journals
and existing knowledge on books will be used as secondary research.. To validate the

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research objective different scholarly views will be presented of each independent
variable effect on the dependent variable.
A sample size of 100 was used from one commercial bank in Khartoum, Sudan using
convenience sampling technique. The research will use quantitative approaches, and a
questionnaire will be designed. A five-point Likert scale questionnaire will be used to
determine the impact of leadership style on employee performance. SPSS software will
be used in analyzing the questionnaires.

References:
1- Adair J (2002) Effective strategic leadership. Macmillan Publishers Limited,
London.
2- Carter M (2008) Overview of leadership in organization.
3- Collins J (1995) Grains airing and power: Lessons from six Scanlon plans.
4- Cornell University Press, New York.
5- Daniel G (2002) The new leaders: Transforming the art of leadership into the
science
6- Kourdi J (1999) One stop leadership. ICSA Publishing Limited, London.