Leadership style, organizational behaviour and employee productivity: A study of ECOWAS Commission, Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Employee productivity in some organizations is usually hampered by the existing leadership style and organizational behaviour. This study aims at assessing the impact of leadership style and organizational behaviour on employee productivity, using the ECOWAS Commission, which is a multinational and multilingual organization, as a case study. The study utilized both the Fielder‘s contingency theory and the Likert‘s leadership theory to emphasize the relationship between leadership style and organizational behaviour on employee productivity in the organization. An underlying factor in both theories is the agreement that leaders are taskoriented and  employee-oriented. Both elements are important in achieving the best from a leader, however, in the right and proper mix. The study made use of both primary and secondary methods in the data collection. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis respectively. The study findings show that most leaders exhibited a transformational leadership style and that this style has positive effect on organizational behaviour and employee productivity at the ECOWAS Commission. The study recommended that transformational leadership style should continue to be promoted to enhance employee and organizational productivity amongst other recommendations.

Keywords: ECOWAS Commission, Employee productivity, Leadership, Organizational behaviour.