Effect of leadership behaviour on labour (employees’) turnover

a case study of Nigerian Universities

Abstract

Leadership today is increasingly associated with the concept of team work, getting along with other people, stimulating and creating a vision which others can identify rather than command and control. The study focused on the influence of leadership behaviour on labour turnover. The Problem is that most institutions have been witnessing high staff turnover which has been associated with many problems. This study examines the challenges and problems being experienced by the employees and institutions through the leadership behaviour with a case study of Nigerian universities. The specific objectives are therefore to: analyse the relationship between leadership behaviour and employees decision; investigate the influence of leadership behaviour on labour turnover and examine the respondents’ perception of leadership behaviour as it affects labour or workplace management. The study is based on the behavioural style theory of leadership using both secondary data from previous studies and primary data obtained from a total of 148 respondents selected from Nigerian Universities. The study is limited to the independent variable: leadership behaviour and dependent variables: employees and labour turnover. The study analysed the data collected using regression and descriptive statistics. This study is significant in helping to determine how leadership behaviour influence employees turnover so as to attain organisational goal. So, managers in institutions / organisations will find it useful as the appropriate strategy for improving organisational management. At the same time the findings of this study will help in improving the management of the workplace to improve the labour turnover for organizational growth and development. The study reveals high relative influence of leadership behaviour on employees’ turnover and also established that leadership has effect on employee turnover. The study makes recommendations towards employees’ workplace management to reduce labour turnover. The findings also suggest that organizations should have the right person (with ability) to do the right job and give employees suitable training to increase their job performance and ability. Besides that, managers as supervisors should always take actions that will improve their workers wellbeing. That is, organizations should always take active step in: providing strong leadership and mentoring for staff members, building working conditions that are conducive as well as provide challenging and stimulating work assignments.