A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF LEADERSHIP STYLES AND EMPLOYEES' JOB PERFORMANCE IN TARABA STATE UNIVERSITY JALINGO , TARABA, NIGERIA

This study examined the influence of leadership styles on employees’ job performance in Taraba State university Jalingo. Two specific objectives with corresponding research questions and hypotheses guided the study. This study adopted descriptive survey research design involving 346 sample size using Taro Yamane formula from 2,564 target population for the study. 103 academic staff and 243 non-academic staff participated while 25 departments and 8 leadership responsibility offices were selected for the study. Self-developed instrument tagged “Leadership Style and Employees Job Performance Questionnaire (LSEJPQ)” was used for data collection. The questionnaire was given face and content validity in terms of scope of coverage, content relevance, ambiguity and vagueness of expression. A pilot study was conducted on 40 respondents and Split-Half was used to generate data while Cronbach’s Alpha analysis was used to generate reliability coefficient of .834. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and inferential statistics of regression analysis was used for testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed significant influence of democratic leadership style on employees’ job performance and significant influence of autocratic leadership style on employees’ job performance. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the leadership of Taraba State University should incorporate elements of democratic style in the administrative activities of the school so as to give staff sense of belonging, thereby increasing their job performance; and that sensitive principles of autocratic leadership style should be imbibed in dealing with university community in order to assign experts into key offices where firm, appropriate and timely decisions are to be taken. This will go in long way in enhancing employees’ job performance in Taraba State University Jalingo. It was concluded that the leadership styles significantly influence on employees’ job performance in Taraba State University Jalingo.