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Leadership in an Organisation

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Leadership in an organisation

1.1 Research Background

The highly competitive market economies have continuously forced majority of organisations around the globe to find various strategies on improving themselves in terms of operations and performance. This is not only vital for meeting their organisational objectives, but also for sustenance (Zheir et al, 2012). Previous researches and studies claim that leadership is the key factor for an organisation or business to survive, operate and perform in today’s competitive market (Ximane,2015);(Bass,1990);( Jung, 2002). Furthermore proper leadership is the strategic element in increasing and achieving organisational goals (Bass &Avolio, 1995) ;( Yousef, 1998). On the other hand, some researches and studies contend that organisational leadership is an embellished concept in that it is not necessary in attaining organisational performance since there are other internal and external factors that come into play ( Ismail et al,1998; (Bass& Avolio,2002;(Munjis,2011).

A number of researches and studies have been carried out to demonstrate that leadership and organisational performance, commitment and innovation go hand in hand (Judge, Bono, Ilies and Gerhardt, 2002; Judge and Piccolo, 2004; Keller, 2006; McGrath and MacMillan, 2000; Meyer and Hepard, 2000; Purcell, Kinnie, Hutchinson and Dickson, 2004; Yukl, 2002). Conversely, some studies for instance, House and Aditya (1997) suggest that is not a key factor in achieving organisational performance, commitment and innovation.

Due to the conflicting findings concerning the role of leadership and organisational performance, commitment and innovation, point out there is a need to study the role of leadership comprehensively. House and Aditya (1997), suggests studying the importance of leadership on organisational performance, commitment and innovation is necessary

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