Exploring the Nexus between Leadership-Performance in State-Owned Higher Educational Institutions in Nigeria: Evidence from Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa, Oyo State

Leadership is a vital element of organisational performance especially in the education sector that is experiencing the pressure of insufficient funding, decaying infrastructure and inefficient management. The study explores the interdependence between democratic leadership and transactional leadership and employees’ job performance in Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa. Mixed-method approach was adopted, with a combination of quantitative and qualitative approach. A total of 173 respondents were sampled through stratified sampling technique from various academic and non-academic departments of the institution. Structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews were used and data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and regression analyses. The results indicate that there is a strong positive correlation between the democratic leadership style and employees job performance with (r = 0.24, p < 0.05), meaning that participative decision making style has a positive effect on the motivation and productivity of employees. In addition, the study revealed that transactional leadership style has a positive relationship with job performance with the correlation of 0.33, which is not significant enough (p = 0.05), implying the reward-based systems and performance incentives effectively enhance employee performance. The study concluded that democratic and transactional leadership styles plays crucial role in enhancing the performance of employees in polytechnic institutions. It suggests that the management must maintain and reinforce the participatory leadership styles and support them with structured reward system to motivate employees