The Effects of Leadership Style in Accelerating Service Delivery in Municipalities in Selected Cities of Ethiopia

Abstract

The ever-changing complex service sector environment has created a need for leaders who can meet the demands and challenges of civil service sector with a real need for improved service delivery. Hence, the purpose of this study was to determine the effect of leadership style in accelerating service delivery in municipalities in selected cities of Ethiopia. Structured questionnaire in the form of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) tomeasure leadership style and the perceived service delivery was employed. The study analyzed the responses from 769 sampled employees of four city administrations (Hawassa, Bahir Dar, Adama, Dire Dawa) and the collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression analysis. The finding of this study shows that from transformational leadership dimensions the idealized influence attributes have the lowestmean 3.33 (Std. Dev. = 0.03) and individual consideration is the highest mean 4.46 (Std. Dev. = 0.04). With regard to transitional leadership, the highest mean score is for management by exception (passive) with a mean score of 4.10 (Std. Dev. =0.05); and the lowest mean score is for contingent reward (mean =3.41, Std. Dev. = 0.06). The regression analysis result shows that there is a significant (p-value<0.01) but weak relationship between perceivedservice delivery, leader transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership style. Overall, these threeleadership styles have a significant effect on the service delivery (P<0.05). According to the results, suggestions are proposed.