Analysis Of Corporate Leadership And Employee Empowerment In Selected Banks

INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Leadership is a subject that has long excited interest among scholars
and managers of men and resources. The term connotes images of powerful
dynamic persons who command victorious grieves, direct corporate empires
from top gleaming skyscraper of shape the course of nation (Yukul 1981).
Interest in this subject existed as long as people have been studying human
behaviour. In fact leadership behavior arises where two or more persons
gather for political, economic, social or religious purpose.
Mekeaghar (1997:180) attested that leadership is not the giving of
direct, rather it is the facilitation of directedness, it is an activity of a group
which cannot actually be separated from the dynamic interaction of the
communal process of envisioning. As such, leadership entails responsibility
of self and others, not only in the identified leader but also in each member
of the group within which leadership implies not only the interrelatedness of
persons but also their common direction. In actual fact, leadership is more
than power or authority, it actually implies some degree of voluntary
compliance by followers.
Peters (1991:340) stressed that in today’s business world, leadership is
a subject of profound importance and of critical relevance to our day to day
activities. The success or failure of enterprises, the ability to support families
(and employee families), and a sense of self worth and achievement, all have
direct links to the performance of corporate leaders. Leader decisions change
companies and lives because leadership is both the adhesive that binds a
work group together and the catalyst for employee motivations.
The organization that exists today is dramatically different from that
which hitherto, existed or which will exist in the future, because technology,
the customs have all changed and will continue to change. Today, the market
place is global, the customs are more demanding, the capabilities to
communicate, especially via the Internet, is growing exponentially. Besides,
employees are even withholding their allegiance until incorporated into the
decision making process. Leaders recognize that while the fundamental
principles by which they do business in changing rapidly (Ferris, 1997).
Today, job requires more thinking, more customers services, more initiative
and more skills application, physical labour is obviously less required. It is a
completely different world requiring different leadership techniques. The
leadership as the eyes, ears, heart and soul of the organization constantly
scans the emerging changes in the world and redefines the business in order
to increase its viability overtime.
The approach of leaders is simply a matter of personal style. Some are
authocratic, or democratic and many offer a combination of styles. They
always like to do anything they want at anytime without consulting anybody
while some are democratic, in the sense that they will do anything. Many
offer a combination of styles. Most successful corporate leaders adopt the
approach that meets the needs of the organization and business structure at
hand. At times, the approaches has do overlap. Some select a dominant
approach, using it as the compass and ruler that direct all corporate decisions
and activities (Farkas and Wetluafer 1996:166).
Fem’s (1997:151) is of the view that corporate organization in the
past had the top three or four executives,who make all the decision and then
supervised the implementation process. But in today’s turbulent world, it is
impossible to control from the top. It is unreasonable even to try. This is
because today’s business world is highly competitive. The way to survive is
to reshape to the need of the rapidly changing world. It is a company does
not meet the needs of its competitors with organizations are reshaping
themselves to change quickly in order to meet the needs of their customers.
Organizations leaders know they cannot throw many act every problem; the
needs highly committed and flexible workers.
Peters (1991:344) maintain that despite the acceleration
technology/authoritative revolution, our organization must become more
dependent on people who are responsible for the companies, success than
ever before, especially with the front line staff with customers. He
emphasizes that this go way beyond, “the people are our greatest asset”
statement that appeared in the mission statement in the seventies and
eighties. The essence behind today’s deep roofed belief is that in today’s
world, technologies and production come and go. Natural resources
throughout the planet and commercial power continues to shift from
manufacturing to services, therefore the employee plays a vital role in the
organizational success. He insists that, there is no limit to what the average
person can accomplish if well trained, well supported and well paid for
primary source of volume added not a factor of production to be optimized,
minimized and/or eliminated.
As we are in the 21st century leaders will have to be highly flexible
and have a broad range of skills. In order to lead and keep good people,
leaders must be articulated, energetic and empowering, modern thinking
about power is that more power is gained by empowering others.
Successful empowerment will typical require feedback on
performance form a variety of sources, an environment that is leant of
mistakes, widely distributed information, that is to learnt of mistakes widely
distributed information, generalist managers and employees, flat structures
and less bureaucracy. In the service industry, managers describe their
primary sources of competitive advantages as being the people. As such
people are the single most important asset. Only a system of distributed
decision making can provide flexibility and motivation for people to
maintain peak performance levels. The banking sector being one of the
foremost sectors in the services industry was selected for the study.
The roles of banks in the macro-economic polities of a nation
especially in the implementation of monetary and fiscal policies cannot be
over emphasized. Commercial Banks have been selected for this study
because of their capital formation role through financial intermediation.
Three Commercial Banks in Enugu were selected for this study. They are
Eco Bank International Plc, Diamond Bank Limited, Union Bank of Nigeria
Plc. These Banks were selected based on their structures, age and size. The
study is to assess the leadership styles adopted in the banking industry and
the relationship between leadership style and corporate performances, to
determine whether the employees are empowered or not and the correlation
between employee empowerment and employee performance. It is also
aimed at determining the relationship that exists between employee
improvement, leadership style and organizational performance and the
overall impact on the stakeholders.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In today’s business world, organizational performance depends on
corporate governance, which in turn depends on employees, who are
considered as the most important asset. Proponents of employee
empowerment believe that it will result in optimal organizational
performance while other’s believe it is a noble cause but are lost on the
empowerment ethics. This becomes a serious problem as most corporate
leaders in a dilemma on whether or not to embrace empowerment and if they
do, how do they manage the empowerment mechanics. As this problem
persists, the organization may be under utilizing the workforce, losing
monetrality and by extension making the society worse off.
There is therefore the need to determine
(i) The mechanics of empowerment employed in the banking sector.
(ii) The effect of governance style on organizational performances.
(iii) Whether employee empowerment actually increased overall
performance of the banks.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are as follows:
i) To determine the governance style relevant in Nigeria banking
industry.
ii) To determine the relationship between leadership style, and
employee performance.
iii) To determine whether the employee is actually empowered in the
banking industry.
iv) To determine the relationship between employee empowerment
and organizational performances.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research work will attempt to provide answers to the following
questions.
(i) What is the dominant/prevalent governance style?
(ii) To what extent is the effect of employee empowerment on the
employee performance and the overall organizational
performance?
(iii) Are employees truly empowered in the banking industry?
(iv) To what extent is there a relationship between the employee
empowerment and organizational performance?

1.5 STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS
Hi There is a relationship between the employee empowerment
and organizational performance.
Ho There is no relationship between the employee empowerment
and organizational performances.
Hi The employee are truly empowered in the banking industry.
Ho The employees are not truly empowered in the banking
industry.
Hi There are factors that calls for employee empowerment in the
organization.
Ho There is no factor that calls for employee empowerment in the
organization.

1.6 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF STUDY
The study will be limited to only three commercial banks based in
Enugu State. The study intends to covers as many effects of governance
style and employee empowerment as possible as it affects organizational
performance.
There may be omission and misinterpretation by the employee of the
Bank. This could be through lack of proper understanding of the questions
asked, forgetfulness or deliberate misinterpretation. This will tend to reduce
the degree of accuracy of the research work.
Finally, there may be problem of insufficient date; this could be as a
result of an availability of information from the required source.

1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
With the licensing of new Banks and imminent introduction of
universal banking. The competition in commercial banking is getting stiffer.
Commercial banks sell virtually the same product and king customer is very
much aware since needs are ever changing, if a company is not bale to
satisfy its customers needs, the likelihood is that its competitors will take
over. Therefore, the success of failure of service delivery depends on the
ability to satisfy the customers, which in turn depends on a large extent of
the employee.
In effects the study is relevant to the extent that it identifies the effects
of leadership styles and employee empowerment on organizational
performance.
The banking sector would have to take advantage of effective
leadership style and employee, empowerment to remain competitive. It will
also prepare, the Banks for the greater tasks ahead to satisfy Bank,
customers and beat competitors.