Culture, Leadership and Individual Performance - A South African Public Service Organization Study

Abstract

The South African (SA) government, like many in developing countries, is subject to various pressures as it tries to address transformation for better service delivery. The aforementioned has an implication on the type of culture created in the Public Sector and type of leaders required to maximise resources for effective and efficient delivery of services. Through an exploratory survey among a convenient cluster sample of respondents in specific public sectors organizations in SA, using predeveloped and validated questionnaires (OCA; MLQ; IWPQ), it became evident that transformational and transactional leadership have a significant relationship with organisational culture, even though there is no significant correlation between the “power” culture, “task” culture and performance measures. Transactional leadership showed a high direct effect on individual performance, compared to transformational leadership. The primary implication for service delivery is that appointments to leadership positions in the South African public service should be on the basis of assessments rather than ‘comradeship.’