Principle-Centred Leadership Styles: Panacea for Sustainable Employee Productivity in Organizations

Abstract

This study focused on types of leadership styles and the effects on employee productivity. Leadership is the ability to use power effectively and responsibly, the ability to comprehend that human beings have different situations, ability to inspire, create a conducive environment and arouse motivation, for enhanced employee productivity. The broad objective of this paper is to examine the concept of principle-centered leadership styles, with emphasis on the relevance of various leadership styles in sustainable employee productivity in organizations. A descriptive approach was adopted from secondary source of data. The study employed theoretical models that highlight 'Great man' and ‘Trait theories', Contingency-Situational theories, to 'Transformational leadership theory. The paper touches on autocratic, democratic and free-rein (laissez-faire) leadership styles. The findings from the study revealed that, there is no one leadership style that fits all occasions, but the styles merge into a continuum, rather that boxes. However, employees seem to be more satisfied under the leadership of a transformational leader. The paper concludes that any leadership style adopted should be one that create suitable and conducive work environment, that will enable employee achieve organizational goals and increase productivity easily. The recommendations of this study, among others, are that any leadership style adopted should incorporate continuous process improvement, which entails continuously searching for better ways of doing things. This could be in the form of large dramatic changes, resulting from new technologies, innovative and small incremental changes and maintaining and building on the performance standards, already in existence, through earlier innovations in the organization.