The Dichotomy of Servant Leadership and Its practicality on the African Continent

To many outsiders, Africa is a continent rife with famines, droughts, militia groups, and emaciated children. As far as leadership is concerned, Africa comes across as a continent whose nations are led by incompetent and arrogant, as well as economically ineffective and politically suspicious leaders who undermine their own democracies. As if to give credence to this observation, in 2012, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation failed to award its annual leadership prize, normally reserved for extraordinary performance in delivery of human rights, integrity, transparency in office and building social cohesion by an African head of state who has left power in the last three years. This leaves one wondering whether there is any chance for the emergence of a leader who truly believes and dedicates himself to the welfare of his people. A servant leader. It is important to understand the intricate details in the servant leadership theory and compare it to other leadership theories, as such an understanding helps leaders in adopting this leadership theory. This note examines the servant leadership theory, its dimensions, the behaviors of servant leaders, the strengths in the theory, criticisms against the theory, expected outcomes and goes on to compare the theory to other theories, before consequently drawing conclusions, thus setting an agenda for future researc

Effects of Transformational Leadership on Work Stress among Top Managers in State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Kenya

Effective managerial leadership at all levels of society is essential for coping with the growing social and economic problems confronting a country. Currently most of the state owned enterprises (SOEs) are making losses or operating below their full potential. This poor performance could be influenced by the inability of top management to perform under stress. Work stress may reduce the productivity of the top management ultimately leading to poor performance. There are various factors that influence work stress among them is leadership styles. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of literature focusing on the effect of leadership styles on work stress in SOEs. This study sought to investigate the role of transformational leadership style on work stress in commercial SOEs in Kenya. Specifically, the study examines the effect of modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act and encouraging the heart on work stress among the top managers of Kenya SOEs. To achieve these objectives the study targeted 175 top managers of commercial SOEs but collected data from 162 managers representing a response rate of 93 percent. The study used factor analysis to create indices for modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, encouraging the heart and work stress. Correlation analysis was used to test the strength of the relationship between work stress and each dimension of transformational leadership. Multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the magnitude and direction of each dimension of transformational leadership on work stress. The study found that model the way positively influence work stress and inspire a shared vision negatively influence work stress while other dimensions of transformational leadership have no significant effect on work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya. The study recommends that managers should be trained and retrained in order to incorporate good leadership practices that will reduce work stress and increase productivity of the SOEs in Kenya. Keywords: Work Stress, Transformational Leadership, State Owned Enterprise

Role of Organizational and Personal Factors on Work Stress Among the Managers of State Owned Enterprises in Kenya

The current stagnation of both the public and private enterprise sectors in Kenya’s economy, suggests among other things that, Kenyan managers/leaders may not be performing to their full managerial and leadership potential.  This observation engenders the need for further investigations.  Managerial work stress is a major organizational problem that has not been adequately addressed neither by organizations nor researchers despite concerted attempts. This paper sought to examine how work stress may be impacted by organizational and personal factors in Kenya commercial State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). To achieve this, the paper examined how the organizational and personal factors affect work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya. Primary data was collected using questionnaires administered to 175 senior managers of SOEs in Kenya. Using random sampling, the paper collected data from 162 managers representing a response rate of 93 percent. The paper found out that organizational factors significantly influenced work stress while organizational structure and climate were major sources of stress. The paper recommended that organization structures and work environment should be streamlined so as to reduce work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya. Keywords: State-owned enterprises, work stress, personal factors, organizational factors

Leadership Practices and Their Influence on Work Stress among Top Managers in State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) In Kenya

A Dissertation Report Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)Individuals are always more productive at their work places when they are operating under no pressure in the course of discharging their duties. As various studies have found out, a conducive working environment is always paramount to the productivity of workers. Therefore leaders in organizations should always endeavour to see their subordinates happy as they go around with their obligations. Stress on the other hand is described as the mental, physical or social, force or pressure that puts real or perceived demands on the body, emotions, mind, or spirit, and which may lead to a breakdown especially when it exceeds the stress-handling capacity of the individual. Sophistication at places of work has done little to reduce work stress, if not fanning it into a wildfire that has turned into an epidemic in this 21st century. Work stress is harmful responses that occur mentally and physically when job requirements do not meet workers capabilities and resources. In Kenya, State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) managers have been put under intense pressure to meet the new regulations under the reform of state corporations. They are expected to meet high performance criteria through performance contracting and high service levels to the citizens. These high demands placed on SOE managers subject them to mental and physiological torture/excitement in their quest to meet the set targets, which has resulted into steady increase in work stressors such as job insecurity, work intensity and interpersonal conflict at work in the last one decade. Additionally, their leadership practices such as transformational leadership may increase work stress. However, there is limited literature focusing on how leadership practices influences work stress. To fill in this gap, this study aimed at contributing towards the subject of leadership and managerial work stress in Kenya by investigating the influence of leadership practices, that is, transformational leadership on work stress in Kenyan SOEs. Specifically, the study critically analysed the effect of modelling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, encouraging the heart on work stress among the top managers of Kenyan SOEs. In addition to that, the study investigated the moderating effect of organizational and personal factors on the relationship between transformational leadership and work stress among the top managers of Kenyan SOEs. To test the hypotheses, the study used interpretivism research philosophy. Additionally, descriptive and explanatory research designs were used to describe and establish the relationship between each dimension of transformational leadership and work stress respectively. The target population of the study was 312 top managers in 52 commercial SOEs of which the study sampled 175 top managers. Simple random sampling technique was used to choose the sample 175 top managers from a population of 312 top managers. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire that was based on the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) Self Scale, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Pressure Management Indicator (PMI) scale. The questionnaire was pilot tested to ensure it was reliable and valid. Data analysis comprised of factor analysis, correlational analysis, univariate and multiple linear regression analysis. Factor analysis was used to reduce data into few factors which were later used in correlation and regression analysis. The results for multiple linear regression model show that model the way positively influences work stress while inspire a shared vision negatively influences work stress among top managers of SOEs in Kenya. However, challenge the process, enabling others to act and encouraging the heart leadership practices had no significant effect on work stress. Regarding the moderating variables, the study found that organizational factors positively influences work stress while personal factors had no significant influence on work stress but personal factors moderates the relationship between inspire a shared vision and work stress among managers of Kenyan SOEs. Finally, the study found that career development and organizational structure and climate were major sources of stress. The study concludes that leadership practices, transformational leadership, of the top managers of Kenyan SOEs influences work stress that could ultimately affect performance of their organizations. The study recommends that state corporations’ advisory committee should encourage the training and retaining of the top managers of SOEs in order to reduce their work stress hence improving their performance. In addition, the study recommends that the top managers should explain the reasons behind their arguments and align their vision with practical implementation strategies. Further, organization structures and work climate should be streamlined to reduce the chances of interferences with the management of the SOEs

Effects of Transformational Leadership on Work Stress among Top Managers in State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Kenya

Effective managerial leadership at all levels of society is essential for coping with the growing social and economic problems confronting a country. Currently most of the state owned enterprises (SOEs) are making losses or operating below their full potential. This poor performance could be influenced by the inability of top management to perform under stress. Work stress may reduce the productivity of the top management ultimately leading to poor performance. There are various factors that influence work stress among them is leadership styles. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of literature focusing on the effect of leadership styles on work stress in SOEs. This study sought to investigate the role of transformational leadership style on work stress in commercial SOEs in Kenya. Specifically, the study examines the effect of modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act and encouraging the heart on work stress among the top managers of Kenya SOEs. To achieve these objectives the study targeted 175 top managers of commercial SOEs but collected data from 162 managers representing a response rate of 93 percent. The study used factor analysis to create indices for modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, encouraging the heart and work stress. Correlation analysis was used to test the strength of the relationship between work stress and each dimension of transformational leadership. Multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the magnitude and direction of each dimension of transformational leadership on work stress. The study found that model the way positively influence work stress and inspire a shared vision negatively influence work stress while other dimensions of transformational leadership have no significant effect on work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya. The study recommends that managers should be trained and retrained in order to incorporate good leadership practices that will reduce work stress and increase productivity of the SOEs in Kenya