Passive Leadership Styles Influence on Employees’ Performance in Kenya, A Study of Turkana County

The issue of leadership influences the performance in many areas and although the area has been researched the relationship between the style that leaders adopt and its impact on performance is not well known. This is because employees respond differently to every style and if you combine whole style it emerges that some styles yield better in certain sectors and poorly in certain areas. This is why this study sought to examine how leaders who adopt passive styles influence performance in the county government. © 2019 Bussecon International Academy. Hosting by Bussecon International. All rights reserved. Peer review under responsibility of Bussecon International Academy.


Introduction
Energy Leadership is the main tool that will help organization achieve this through planning and changing of policies. Hughes et al (2012) argues that the role of leadership in organizations is to put structure and order. Leadership in organizations has to direct and coordinate the work of group members and building interpersonal relationships with others. Leaders who are visionary can actually steer the organization towards great success. Leadership effectiveness is shown by quality results.
29 positive contributions to their companies by attracting and retaining new customers, driving innovation or simply spreading their positivity to co-workers (Crabtree & Robison, 2013).
Research on these styles has found that teams led by transformational leaders (who are more relationship-oriented) have moderately higher performance than groups led by leaders who employ other leadership styles (Lussier, 2008). Qureshi, Khan & Hijazi (2011) indicated that there is a significant relationship between transformational leadership, employee engagement practices and employee performance. Achua & Lussier (2013) later stated that "transformational leadership seeks to change the status quo by articulating to followers the problems in the current system and a compelling vision of what new organizations could be" (p.311).
In Chad, Sougui, Bon & Hassan (2016) carried out a research on the impact of leadership styles on employees' performance in Telecom sector. They used the four path-goal theory styles namely directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented (Daft, 2011). The purpose of the study was to ascertain if there was a relationship between the leadership styles and the employees' performance, particularly in the Telecom Engineering companies. The study's findings established that the impact of leadership styles on employees' performance was significant.
In Kenya, Machuki, Aosa, & Letting' (2012), carried out a study looking at the corporate performance of 23 companies listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The results established that a very strong positive relationship exists between the style of leadership and performance citing employee productivity. Nderu (2013) noted that today's organizational environment is proving to be very different from that of the past. The author pointed out that global competition, information technology, the quality service revolution, diversity and ethics dictated the style of leadership that one uses. As a result of this paradigm shift, new leadership styles are emerging. These are more responsive to both their internal and external environments with the goal of performing better and gaining competitive advantage within their industries (Machuki, 2012;Nderu, 2013).
Reference is also made to a study by Koech & Namusonge (2012). This study investigated the main effects of leadership styles on performance at state-owned corporations in Kenya. It specifically sought to determine the impact of laissez-faire, transactional and transformational leadership styles on organizational performance at state-owned corporations in Kenya. The study recommended that managers should discard laissez-faire leadership style and adopt a more participative style of leadership in guiding their subordinates; public managers should formulate and implement effective reward & recognition systems, this view was also supported by Nderu (2013). Koech and Namusonge (2012) further recommended that managers should strive to adopt a leadership style that facilitates them to become role models to their subordinates; a style that inspires and stimulates subordinates to become more innovative & creative; and also adopt a style that helps them to pay greater attention to each individual's need for achievement and growth. This recommendation is in line with the view of Chaudhry & Husnain (2012). This is why this paper sought to examine how passive leaders influence the performance of their employees in County Government of Turkana, Kenya.
Leadership either negatively or positively affects the acceleration of service delivery since leadership plays a significant role in service delivery and the lack of its effectiveness may hamper the ultimate expected accelerated outcomes. Studies show that at least 9 of the 13 (69%) of companies face employee performance problems. These challenges emanate from the types of leadership styles applied. The problems include poor communication, failure to solve the gender related challenges, high employee turnover, failure to involve employees in decision making, lack of innovation among employees, huge financial losses (Mugwe, 2012;Juma, 2014;Nyamemba, 2012;Omboi & Kubai, 2011;Awuor & Manyallah, 2013), decline in employee productivity, diminished morale, increased costs of hiring and training new employees and poor customer service from the employees (Mumbi, 2015;Sokoro, 2012& Nkoidila, 2015. Despite the known influences of leaderships styles on performance the influence on county government is still a new phenomenon that the paper sought to examine.

Trait Theory
In the past, researchers and theorists in leadership focused on the features of leaders. This belief was probably due to the belief that leadership ability stemmed effective leadership. In turn this emanated from personality characteristics, which are either innate or acquired.
One of the earliest approaches for the study of leadership was the trait approach. Underlying this approach was the assumption that some persons are natural leaders. To Adei (2002) some leaders like Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. are very fascinating and that these types of people were "natural leaders". They were endowed with certain traits not possessed by others. Trait research was facilitated by the rapid development of psychological testing between 1920 and 1950. Yukl (1981) has observed that the kinds of traits studied most frequently in the early leadership research included physical characteristics (height, appearance, energy level), personality (self-esteem, dominance, emotional stability) and ability (general intelligence, verbal fluency, originality, social insight). However, it was observed that there were some very effective leaders who do not possess all of these qualities while some ineffective leaders possess these traits. It came out that traits may give one a head's start but by themselves inadequate for effective leadership. The conclusion drawn was that there was no specific set of traits that always make effective leadership. That trait could not be used exclusively as a basis for selecting leaders.

Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Theory
Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard developed the Situational Leadership Theory. Like Fiedler's, this model also discusses the degrees to which leaders focus on relationships and tasks. Hersey and Blanchard were however of the view that the leader's behavior should adapt to the situation. The leader-follower relationship was compared to that of a parent and a child and that the leadership style should reflect the maturity of the employees as measured by traits such as one's ability to work independently. According to Hersey and Blanchard, leaders should adjust the degree of task and relationship behavior to respond to the maturity levels of their followers. The theory maintains that in a situation where an employee is not able to perform a task the leader has to provide specific instructions.

Conceptual Framework
Conceptual framework represents how the independent variables; Integrative and Abdicative leadership styles influences the county government performance which is dependent variable; Executing defined duties, Meeting deadlines, Team input and achieving departmental goals. The following is a diagrammatic representation of the relationships.

Abdicative Leadership Styles
This type of leader s cautious, careful, conservative, prefers paper work procedures, facts-looks for established principles, accurate, precise, correct, perfectionist, calm, modest and discreet. This leadership style according to the study includes; bureaucratic leadership style and strategic leadership which will be discussed under this section.

Bureaucratic Leadership Style
In this style of leadership, the manager manages "by the book". It requires total compliance to procedures and rules. If the rules and regulations do not cover a specific situation, the bureaucratic leader looks to the supervisor for guidance (Zervas and David, 2013). Michael (2010) argues that in bureaucratic leadership, it is the policies that drive execution, strategy, objectives and outcomes in the organization. He stresses further that since bureaucratic leaders are usually committed to procedures and processes instead of people (employees), they often times appear aloof and are highly averse to change. Swarup (2013) pointed out that bureaucratic leadership style can be effective when: employees are performing routine tasks over and over again, employees need to understand certain standards or procedures, employees are working with dangerous or delicate equipment that requires a definite set of procedures to operate, safety or security training is being conducted, and employees are performing tasks that require handling cash.
The overriding implication of bureaucratic style of leadership in organization is that it ignores the benefits of the leader to motivate and develop employees, since policies are simply inadequate to the task of motivating and developing employees' commitment in workplace. Policies are not in themselves destructive, but non-futuristic and thoughtlessly developed and blindly implemented policy can de-motivate employees and frustrate desired outcomes.

Strategic Leadership
Strategic leadership is a requirement for survival in a changing world. Boal and Hooijberg (2000) identified the essence of this leadership style as involving the capacity to learn, to change and the managerial wisdom. Strategic Leaders exhibited charisma, were value driven, visionary and had the required cognitive and behavioral complexity necessary to translate their social intelligence into effective business performance in an ever changing organizational landscape. Accordingly, this theory held that effective leaders needed the strategic skills to rapidly assimilate lessons, to devise proactive strategies and to implement them with speed and sensitivity.

Integrative Leadership Styles
This style derives authority from aims, ideals, goals, policies, wants participation, low power differences, prefers shared objectives and responsibilities, integrates individual with organization. In this study this style will include situational leadership style as discussed below.

Situational Leadership Style
The concept of situational leadership was first developed by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard in 1969(Richard, 2013. The situational approach to leadership is based on the assumption that each instance of leadership is different and therefore requires a unique combination of leadership, followers, and leadership situation (Richard, 2013). The interaction in situational leadership is commonly expressed in a formula: SL=F (L, F, and S), where SL is successful leadership, F stands for function of; and L, F, S, are respectively the leader, the follower, and the situation. In other words, this formula states that a successful leadership is a function of a leader, follower and situation that are appropriate for one another (Richard, 2011).
The theorists of situational leadership style posit that a leader needs to fit his leadership to the individual requirement of a situation. This means that the leader's behaviour should be contingent on the situation (Peng-Hsian, Hsin, and Thun-Yun, 2008). Rotimi (2013) explained that the theory of situational leadership asserts that there is no one style of leadership that pertains to all given workplace situation. Rather, effective leaders change their leadership styles to fit the situation. Thus a leader's style changes with both the situations they are faced with and the environment that they are in. It holds that managers must apply different leadership styles depending on the various leadership situations that they face (Rotimi, 2013).
The situational leadership model has two components that are employed to ensure its effectiveness. These components are development level and the leadership style. The model posits that leadership style must match the appropriate level of followershipdevelopment. In this model, leadership behaviour becomes a function of not only the characteristics of the leader, but of the characteristics of follower as well (Vectorstudy.com). The development level refers to the follower's degree of competence and commitment (Qin, 2011). The competence is referred here as the knowledge and skills a follower brings to a specific goal or task, while commitment is the follower's motivation and confidence on the goal or task (Mwai, 2011). A critical review of the situational leadership style suggests the implication that it provides support and motivating environment for employees in the organization based on their needs; hence applying the leadership approach can build morale among employees and create a productive environment that will improve performance.

Research and Methodology
The study employed a descriptive cross sectional survey design using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Target population was employees of Turkana County in Kenya, which will form the unit of analysis. In this study the target population was 599 county employees, this was Senior managers and Technical Staff in the county. However, the sample was selected randomly from each cadre of level II employees also all level I employees were interviewed and there the study sample was 30% which 344 respondents were sampled randomly to form the study sample.

Data Collection
Data was collected using self-administered questionnaires. The questionnaire was in two sections. . All the items of the questionnaires were measured using a Likert scale consisting of five scores from 1= "Strongly Disagree" to 5 = "Strongly Agree".

Data Analysis
Data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics using the following methods: frequency and percentage distribution. Additionally, inferential statistics were conducted using: factor analysis, Pearson's correlation, multiple linear regression and ANOVA which was used to test the hypotheses. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 and windows' Microsoft excel programs were tools used in data analysis.

Regression Analysis for Construct Integrative leadership
The regression model of Integrative leadership with a coefficient of determination of R 2 = 0.522 and R= 0.571 at 0.05 significance level. The coefficient of determination indicates that 52.2 % of the variation on employee's performance is influenced by Integrative leadership. This shows that there exists a positive relationship between Integrative leadership on employee's performance.
The test of beta coefficient shows that there is a significant relationship between Integrative leadership and employees performance as positive. The coefficient significance of Integrative leadership effect as 0.190 is significantly greater than zero since the significance of t-statistics 0.00 is less than 0.05. This demonstrates the high level of Integrative leadership as having a positive effect on employee's performance.

ANOVA for construct Integrative leadership
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for regression coefficients, the results demonstrate that the significance of F statistics is 0.00 which is less than 0.05. Therefore, it implies that there is a significant relationship between Integrative leadership and employees' performance.

Regression analysis for construct Abdicative leadership
The regression model of Abdicative leadership with a coefficient of determination of R 2 = 0.495 and R= 0.442 at 0.05 significance level. The coefficient of determination indicates that 49.5% of the variation on employee's performance is influenced by Abdicative leadership. This shows that there exists a positive relationship between Abdicative leadership on employees' performance.
The test of beta coefficient shows that there is a significant relationship between Abdicative leadership and employees performance as positive. The coefficient significance of Abdicative leadership effect as 0.190 is significantly greater than zero since the significance of t-statistics 0.00 is less than 0.05. This demonstrates high level of Abdicative leadership as having a positive effect on employees' performance.

ANOVA for construct Abdicative leadership
The results of Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for regression coefficients; the analysis results revealed that the significance of F statistics is 0.00 which is less than 0.05. This implies that there is a significant relationship between Abdicative leadership and employees' performance.

Discussion of Findings
According to 75.7% the leader re-examines critical assumptions to question whether they are appropriate, 63% agree that the leaders talks about most important and beliefs, 68.4% agree that their leaders seek different perspectives when solving problems. According to 68.4% agree that their leaders are optimistic of the future, 55.2% agree that their leaders instill pride for being associated with them, 69.6% agree that their leader talks enthusiastically about what needs to be accomplished, 69.6% agree that the leaders specifies the importance of having a strong sense of purpose, 53.4% of the respondents agree that the leaders spends time teaching and coaching employees, 55.2% agree that leaders encourage them for good beyond self-interest for the good of the organization, 42.6% agree that the leader treats others as individuals rather than just members of the organization.
It was also revealed that 61.2% acts in ways that builds others respect for them, 59.7% agree that their leaders considers the moral and ethical consequences of decisions, 66.3% agree that leader displays a sense of power and confidence, 58.8% agree that their leader helps others to develop their strengths, 74.7% agree that their leader emphasizes on having a collective sense of mission, 63.6% agree that their leader tell others what to do if they want to be rewarded for their work, 69.6% agree that their leader is happy when others meet agreed-upon standards, 50.1% agree that the leader is contented to let others continue working in the same manner always, 53.1% agree that their leader provides recognition or rewards when others reach their goals. According to 47.1% agree that as long as things are working, our leader does not try to change anything 62.7% support that the leader helps others find meaning in their work while 57.9% agree that the leader gets others rethink ideas that they had never questioned before.
According 51.9% agree that they are completely free to set our own goals and monitor our own performance, according to 42.9% disagreed when asked if their leader avoids him/herself from getting involved when important issues arise, Nusair et al, (2012) agree that that in rapidly changing environment, organizations need a leadership style that encourages employee involvement and participation in effective decision making. These findings agree with Tripathi & Readdy (2013) who noted that employees want to work in a friendly working environment and that they want to know that they are more than just a number and that their thoughts and opinions matter. Robbins (2014) on the other hand, noted that involving staff in important decisions not only demonstrates that their opinion is valued, but also allows them to evolve as professionals within the organization. Leadership should therefore, create a staff council to discuss company best practices, or bring lower level employees into management meetings to expose them to discussions involving the future of the company.
According 37.5% they disagreed when asked if their leader fails to interfere until serious issues arise, 5.6% disagreed when asked if their leader waits for things to go wrong before taking action. However, according 30.6% agree that their leader avoids him/herself from goal setting and decision making this is not significantly true as supported by mean=4.11, p=0.326, α=0.05, this implies that not most of the respondents were in agreement with this statement and also 33% disagreed mean=3.44, p=0.198, α=0.05, this shows my leader delay responding to urgent questions. The interviews showed further that employees felt not involved and therefore affected their morale and performance. This study tallied with Quick and Nelson (2013) who established that the participative leader behavior involves leaders consulting with followers and asking for their suggestions before making a decision. This behavior is predominant when subordinates are personally involved in their work. Consulting with followers and taking their ideas into account when making decisions and taking particular actions. Also in agreement is Luthan (2011) who noted that this approach is best when the followers are expert and their advice is both needed and they expect to be able to give it. The finding also agrees with Moorhead and Griffin (2012) who noted that the leader consults with their followers before making a decision on how to proceed. Luthan (2011) on the other hand, established that this approach is best when the followers are experts. Robbins (2014) also believed that bringing employees onboard when making decisions about the company's future, helps strengthen the existing relationship with each employee. The study also agrees with Jones (2013) who stated that leaders will gain respect from their employees and instill a sense of responsibility in their workforce when they let employees voice their opinions. The benefits associated with this approach include the ones discussed below. Companies that make decisions while keeping employees in the dark may lose the trust of their employees. Moshal (2009) also noted that trust also serves as a key factor in determining employee relations. Involving employees in the company's decision making process enables leaders to bring transparency to the workplace as noted by Sinek (2014).
From interviews it was revealed that the bureaucratic leadership is practiced by most of the leaders and influence the morale of employees negatively as supported by 16 interviewed respondents. This is supported by Michael, (2010) who argued that bureaucratic leaders are usually strongly committed to procedures and processes instead of people, and as a result they may appear aloof and highly change adverse. The specific problem or problems associated with using policies to lead are not always obvious until the damage is done. According to Michael the danger here is that leadership's greatest benefits, motivating and developing people, are ignored by bureaucratic leaders (Michael, 2010).

Conclusions
Integrative leaders seek to discover and examine the existing assumptions and finds new way of doing things. The leader is optimistic and seeks different perspective of doing the same thing and respective the morals and ethics of organizations. They help the employees achieve the purpose of organizations and encourages the employees whenever they meet the set targets and therefore giving them morale they need to perform better. The leader's challenges employees to question the routine way of life and find new and challenging way of tackling ideas.
Abdicative leaders are leaders who gives the employees total freedom to make decision and implement them this is because the leader gives employees help whenever the ask or when the important issues arise. Although these leaders do not constantly monitor employees they do not wait until things get bad before they intervene. They are always there to respond to an urgent matter or help employees whenever the need and kind of help. In this study author recommend (i)Integrative leaders should not give the employees freedom to question every aspect of organization like rules and regulation but allow them to be innovative but accountable for their actions so as to limit the wastage and deviations from the organization goals and mission, (ii) abdicative leadership style should only be adopted in organization middle level employees and not on the subordinate staff, it also works well on the educated, and experienced employees who know what is expected of them and are adequately compensated for morale.

Relationship between abdicative leadership and employee performance
The second objective of the survey was to find out the relationship between abdicative leadership style and the performance of employees in the Turkana County. The results are as presented under this section of the study.