Leadership Approaches in Building Construction Industries in South East Nigeria: The Challenges

Abstract

The study examined challenges inherent in different leadership styles in building construction industries in south-east of Nigeria. It adopted descriptive research design. One research question and hypothesis guided the study. The population for this study consisted of 2890; 945 contractors and 1945 employees from the 290 registered building construction firms handling public buildings within South-East, Nigeria. A sample size of 351; 103 contractors and 248 employees were used for the study. The instrument for data collection for this study was a structured questionnaire. The face and content validity of the instrument was established using the opinions of three experts from the Department of Building, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach alpha which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.87. The findings of this study revealed that inability to influence others, characteristics of task in organization, inability to initiate actions and move others to share goals and ineffective/poor leadership skills were ranked the highest challenges faced by leadership approaches on construction industries. It recommended among others that managers of building construction industries in South-East of Nigeria should have good influence on members of their staff; exhibit good and efficient leadership skills; clearly define tasks and responsibilities assigned to their subordinates for effective job performance.