Impact Of Leadership Styles On Employee Performance: A Case Study Of BP Australia

State of The Problem

In the current era, different organizations and companies have attained different success rate in the business operation, even when they have the same amount of resources, and utilizing the same level of technology. This has brought a recurring debate on the possible causes of variance in the level of performance and success rates of firms in a particular market. In other words, different scholars, business analysists and project managers have raised different opinions relating to the performance variance. In reference to the theory of organization performance, it is imperative and significant to note that the performance of a given firm is determined by a number of variables among which include employee satisfaction, the level of technology employed, the level of market research, and reputability of the company among others. It has however been identified that one of the most influential noticeable determinants of a firm’s performance is the employee satisfaction and performance. Taking a critical evaluation of different views, reports have indicated that employees’ performance is typically determined by the state of leadership in a company (Birasnav, 2014, p.1629).

Leadership has been used by different aspects of life including political, social and economic context. This implies that it has been defined in different ways depending on the context of use. Nonetheless, leadership may be primarily understood as the flow and chain of power in an organization as well as the type of people involved in the management system of an organization. Different leadership styles have been recommended and adopted by different organizations depending on the mode of operation or the type of market/ industry in which they operate in. transactional leadership style has been one of the oldest and effective leadership styles in organizations (Zhang, Li, Ullrich, & van 2015, p.1933). However, there have been significant changes and adjustments being adopted as ways of perfecting organizational performances as transformational leadership is continually gaining popularity due to its effective adaptivity and value outcome.

This study therefore intends to critically analyse, evaluate and identify the essential impact of leadership style in the performance of a firm or an organization and BP company Australia in particular. BP is a multinational oil and gas company with its headquarters based in London, England. The company has an approximated ne income of over 3.4 billion as reported in 2017 and operating in over 50 countries worldwide.

In particular, the research study intends to conduct a careful analysis of how the leadership style adopted by BP oil and gas Company in Australia affects or rather impacts on its performance in the industry/ market in which it operates.

In the current competitive era, business and firms are continually envisaging new ways of maximizing performance by increasing on the revenue and sales. However, the improvement in revenue and sales can only be realized through a well-planned and strategized aligning of different firm variables (DuBois, Koch, Hanlon, Nyatuga & Kerr, 2015, p.7). As identified earlier, leadership are one of the most delicate and imperative factors in determining organizational performance and yet organization performance is an integral product of employees’ performance. This therefore merges a debate of how leadership styles adopted by a company affects its performance (Masa’deh, Obeidat, & Tarhini, 2016, p.705). it is typical that the viability in the performance of leaders in a firm as far as employee handling is concerned, has a recognizable effect in the way in which employees execute their tasks assigned to them by the top management.

Research Aims, Objectives and Research Questions

Nevertheless, some research studies have indicated that organizational performance is hardly affected by the leadership style adopted by firms. In addition, a critical review of many different literature studies show that employees’ are motivated by renumeration. However, the renumeration is not always sufficient enough if the working relationship of the company top administrative and managerial posts are not in good terms with the employees (Mulki, Caemmerer, & Heggde, 2015, p.20). This type of relation can only be achieved by employing the most effective leadership styles. Looking at the definition of leadership in an organizational context, it refers to the social traits possessed by an individual or a group of people that gives them the ability to influence others to behave or act in a way desired by the individual. The interest of the individuals/ leaders are usually the organizational goals. In such scenarios, it therefore of high relevance to investigate the relationship between employees’ performance and leadership styles used by BP Oil and Gas company as a way of identifying the most applicable style, appropriate for the company’s further progress (Bouckenooghe, Zafar, & Raja, 2015, p.264)

Research aims

In reference to a series of reports, there is a sense of positivism regarding the correlation between employees’ performance and leadership styles. On the other hand, however, some researchers are also continuously reporting the negligible relationship between employees’ performance and leadership skills.

With the preceding scenario, the study will aim at developing a sense of certainty in regard to the relationship between leadership styles and employees’ performance in organizations and BP company Australia in particular (Donate, & de, 2015, p.370). The study intends to conduct a critical analysis of the available and most recent reports from different reliable sources as a way of establishing the core facts. This will help in the improvement of the company performance as it will help it to adopt the most applicable and reliable leadership style. In simple terms, the research plans to investigate the effect of different leadership styles in BP’s performance as an organization

Research questions

As a strategy of streamlining the research study into measurable and attainable format, the study will make use of research questions.

• What are the different leadership styles that can be adopted by an organization and Australian BP company in particular?
• What are the factors that should be considered before choosing a leadership style for an organization like BP Company Australia?
• What are the possible associated gaps and shortcomings as a result of adopting the different leadership styles?
• In which ways can the identified shortcomings be solved

Research objectives

The research questions were transformed into research objectives as listed subsequently

• To understand the different leadership styles that can be adopted in organizations and the BP company in particular
• To ascertain the vital factors that should be considered when choosing a leadership style for an organization like BP company Australia
• To understand the gaps and shortcomings associated with different leadership styles
• To point out the possible remedies for the identified gaps and shortcomings that arise as a result of adopting different leadership styles

Justification; As noticed earlier, the performance of a company is solely dependent on the internal operation of the firm. Taking a critical view of the internal performance of a firm, it is greatly determined by the employees. This implies that the employee’s performance is very important in effecting internal operation of the firm (Boehm, Dwertmann, Bruch, & Shamir, 2015, p.171). Additionally, it can be justifiably noted that the leadership structure of an organization determines the way in which the general operation of a firm is conducted in a business entity including the employees’ harmonisation. In other words, employees’ performance moves hand in hand with the leadership coordination. The coordination starts right from the communication skills, conflict management, motivation and job security. However, it is important to note that all the identified factors are dependent on the leadership style employed. A brief overview of the available literatures and reports indicated that there is a continuous and recurring debate of how leadership styles affect employees’ performance and the general operation of a firm as a whole. There is no coherent justification of the argument, whether with positive or negative view even though a series of reports have tried to justify their ideas. There are empirically sequences of gaps being identified in the opinions thus need for the study

Justification and Potential Output of The Study

Potential output of the research study; keeping in mind that the study makes use of well-formulated research question, it is expected thst the research study will help in empirically assist is creating core understanding of the identified issues in the research question. These will include but not limited to the following;

• Identifying and comprehensively understanding the different leadership skills that can be employed in an organization more especially BP Oil and Gas company Australia,
• Helping managers in understanding the essential factors to consider before choosing a leadership style in an organization and in different contexts
• Providing a base for mitigation of the gaps that exist in different leadership skills. This will be possible after analysing and understanding the weaknesses and gaps of different leadership styles.

Leadership styles and performance; a series of studies have indicated that the ability of the management of a particular firm or organization to effectively execute, collaborate and coordinate its activities is based on the leadership structure of the entity as well as the leadership skills by the concerned individual.

A research conducted by Donate, & de (2015) showed that the integrity of a leader not only inspires performance but also improves efficiency and working towards a common organizational goal. Leadership implies the ability of an individual to convince and guide a given group of people execute tasks towards achieving a unified goal.

In an evaluator study “how ethical leadership impacts and shapes employees perfomance” by Bouckenooghe, Zafar, & Raja  (2015) indicated that leaders are the main determinants and players of any organization. The reflection put forth by them directly impacts on how the employee’s turnover or remain in the company. Much as there has considerably many positive findings regardi g the leadership styles and the employess perfomance, most of the arguments have no justification and the interpretation of the findings are significantly hard. Nonetheless, there has been continuous and persistent use of leadership theories as a way of explaining the organization organizational relationship

Theories of leadership

There have area series of leadership and motivational theories that attempt to explain processes of effective organizational change management. The most prominent and applicable theories include the transformational leadership theory. In an investigational study to analyse the differences between transactional leadership amd transformation leadership by  Maduka, Udeaja & Greenwood (2015), it was noted that the differences arise as a result of the differences in which the employees performances are aroused or motivated. The transformational theory advocated for the development of trust, loyalty and sincerity from the employees, which induces them to toil beyond their bosses’ expectation. This theory influences organizational directed interests among the employees of the firm. The transformational theory of leadership and motivation are based on four main concepts, that is to say; individual simulation, inspirational motivation, charisma and individual consideration. Different research studies including Saleem (2015) and Mulki,  Caemmerer, & Heggde (2015) had a positive argument towards transformational theory of leadership as being the mot efficient in influencing employee perfomance for superior output.

On the other hand, transactional theory capitalizes on exchange progression, where the followers are meant to comply with the leader’s requests and interests. It makes use of both constructive and corrective behaviours. The constructive behaviour is hinged on the contingent reward while corrective behaviours bases on exception in management. This theory may not be influential enough to produce dedication and passion in the work done (Popli, & Rizvi, 2015, p.70)

Hypothesis;

The research study will make use hypothesis which will be as follows;

H₀: leadership styles do not affect employee performance in an organization

H₁: leadership styles affect employees’ performance in an organization

H₀: there are gaps in the leadership theories presented by some scholar

H₁: there are no gaps in the leadership theories presented by

H₀: leadership skills are learned

H₁: leadership skills are trait oriented and in-born

In order to ensure effective, analyse, evaluate asses and address the identified research issue, the study will engage in a careful methodological study this will include both primary and secondary research. The intention of using both primary and secondary research is to help in strengthening the reliability of the research study (Maduka, Udeaja, & Greenwood, 2015, p.10). It will be undertaken as follows;

Literature review; as noted previously, the study will use reports of different researchers as the secondary research. In other words, different literatures in relation with the research topic will be reviewed to find out the correlation. This will include the use of reliable data sources like the BP company annual reports, google scholar, the university library, statistical websites as well as company websites. Google scholar will act as a source for published journals, academical books and peer reviewed articles

The study population; the study population of the research study will basically be the employees of BP Oil and Gas Company Australia. Keeping in mind that the research intends to establish the relationship between leadership style and employee performance in organizations, with BP oil and gas as the case study, the research will therefore focus on the findings as reflected by the case study (Tvaronaviciene, Razminiene, & Piccinetti, 2015, p. 19). It is important to note that “the employees of the company” implies all the stakeholders who work in the company, from top management to the subordinates

The sampling method/ selection of participants; the research study will make use of purposive sampling techniques. This intends to collect a comprehensive information from all important stakeholders from varying managerial posts/ level. The purposive sampling will ensure the striking a balance between top and lower managerial ranks, balancing sex, and perceptions.

Data collection; the study will make use of different data collection methods including interviews and questionnaires. Well-designed questionnaires will be used with open ended questions will be used. It is directed towards improving on the validity of the answers from the questionnaires. interviews will also be conducted to collect the views. The data collection will be done in a manner that, both the top posts and the subordinates participate in the study.

Data analysis; all the information/ raw data collected from literature reviews, interviews and questionnaires will be thoroughly analyzed with the help of mixed research methodology, that is to say, both quantitative and quantitative methods

Justification for the mixed data analysis; there has been infinitely many researchers having different views on the choice of data analysis, whether to choose qualitative or quantitative method. Nonetheless, it is justifiable true that the trend of recommendation by the different researchers have a sense of correlation with the type of research that they undertake (Daniel, 2017, p.770). Scientific researchers have often recommended quantitative data analysis. on the other hand, the social researchers argue that qualitative method is the best. Basing on such scenarios and argument, it becomes typically important to adopt the use of a mixed research method for a study that require the use of both numerical and descriptive data. This gives a core base for the use of a mixed method.

Qualitative data analysis; qualitative data will be collected from the primary study held using interview method. The information collected from the study sample will be subjectively be analysed with no sense of biasness. Qualitative findings will also be gathered from the literature review that contained mainly descriptive reports.

Quantitative data analysis; the questionnaires designed will help in the generation of quantitative data. additionally, numerical data will also be collected from literature review containing numerical expressions and tables. The PB database will further provide first-hand quantitative data for analysis (Khan, & Rafi, 2018, p. 18).

Just like any other research report, the research stud will be organized in a an academically recommended structure. This will be as follows;

Chapter one; this part will basically involve all the research proposal as presented/ required in the assignment. This part entails the introductory part of the report, statement problem, the research questions, and research objectives.

Chapter two; this section will contain an in-depth analysis of different case studies that are relevant to the research topic

Chapter three; this section bags an extensive study in regard to the conceptual framework. I other words, this section will carry detailed content from literature reviews.

Chapter four; this section will have all the details of the methodology used for the research study and how the methodologies were used. It will include but not limited to the literature review technique, the key word search, data collection methods, the methods of data analysis, the population, sampling methods, sampling size, and data analysis software packages

Chapter five; it will involve a detailed research finding as well as the analysis of the data findings as per the data collected.

Chapter six; it will involve all the summaries of the research findings as reported and analysed from the previous sections. The challenges will also be identified at this stage and finally recommendations formulated as remedies to the issue. Identification of gaps for future research will be the final phase of the report

for effective completion of the research study within the anticipated time as reflected by the timeline, the well-planned budget was drawn to ensure all the necessary activities are funded in time. The estimated budget for the successful execution of the project/ research study is $10,000. The justification of the anticipated budget is as below

1. identification and development of a viable research topic, necessary documentation and submission for approval will cost an estimated cost of $ 500
2. the selection, evaluation, shortlisting and training of the research team. It is important to note that conducting research requires a team of experts with relevant skills in particular areas. As a way of developing a coherent and reliable research finding, it’s expected that hiring an expert research consultant will cost $ 1000
3. research and review of relevant literatures; in order to review the relevant literature as proposed in the in the mythology section, the purchase or access fee of such literatures will cost an estimated $ 2000. The renting of books and journal, both physical and online can be costly and all need to be catered for.
4. Data compilation and analysis tools; during the research study, there will be need for the availability of reliable data collection tools like computers, statistical software packages, analytical mechanism among others. This will further need funds, an estimated $ 3000 will be used
5. Others shortcoming and uncertainties; during the execution of any project, it is important to allocate an additional funds to cater for the unplanned shortcomings that may happen during the research study. Is estimated to cost 3000

The expenses can be presents in a table as follows

References

Birasnav, M. (2014). Knowledge management and organizational performance in the service industry: The role of transformational leadership beyond the effects of transactional leadership. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), 1622-1629.

Bouckenooghe, D., Zafar, A., & Raja, U. (2015). How ethical leadership shapes employees’ job performance: The mediating roles of goal congruence and psychological capital. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(2), 251-264.

Donate, M. J., & de Pablo, J. D. S. (2015). The role of knowledge-oriented leadership in knowledge management practices and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 68(2), 360-370.

DuBois, M., Koch, J., Hanlon, J., Nyatuga, B., & Kerr, N. (2015). Leadership Styles of Effective Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance Teams. Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance & Marketing, 7(1).

Masa’deh, R. E., Obeidat, B. Y., & Tarhini, A. (2016). A Jordanian empirical study of the associations among transformational leadership, transactional leadership, knowledge sharing, job performance, and firm performance: A structural equation modelling approach. Journal of Management Development, 35(5), 681-705.

Mulki, J. P., Caemmerer, B., & Heggde, G. S. (2015). Leadership style, salesperson’s work effort and job performance: the influence of power distance. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 35(1), 3-22.

Saleem, H. (2015). The impact of leadership styles on job satisfaction and mediating role of perceived organizational politics. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 563-569.

Zhang, X. A., Li, N., Ullrich, J., & van Dick, R. (2015). Getting everyone on board: The effect of differentiated transformational leadership by CEOs on top management team effectiveness and leader-rated firm performance. Journal of Management, 41(7), 1898-1933.

Boehm, S. A., Dwertmann, D. J., Bruch, H., & Shamir, B. (2015). The missing link? Investigating organizational identity strength and transformational leadership climate as mechanisms that connect CEO charisma with firm performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), 156-171.

Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2015). Exploring the relationship between service orientation, employee engagement and perceived leadership style: a study of managers in the private service sector organizations in India. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(1), 59-70.

Daniel, B. K. (2017, October). iMETHOD AND LEARNING ANALYTICS RESEARCH DESIGN FOR PEDAGOGICAL ENHANCEMENT OF RESEARCH METHODS COURSES. In E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 769-777). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Khan, U. A., & Rafi, M. (2018, April). Semantic Oriented Document Clustering Using Distribution Semantics. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information System and Data Mining (pp. 14-18). ACM.

Tvaronaviciene, M., Razminiene, K., & Piccinetti, L. (2015). Aproaches towards cluster analysis. Economics & Sociology, 8(1), 19.

Maduka, N., Udeaja, C., & Greenwood, D. (2015). The Use of Exploratory Research in Addressing Knowledge Issues in Delivering Sustainable Retrofitted Building Projects

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