THE IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLE ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE
(A CASE STUDY OF UNILEVER (NIG) PLC, LAGOS)
CHAPTER ONE
1.1    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Leadership has been defined as the ability of an individual to influence the act or the process influencing people so that they will strive willingly toward the achievement of group goal (koontz O’Donnet and Weihrick, 1988:37). To lead is to guide, direct, conduct. The purpose of the leader is to help the group achieve their maximum objective. The leaders in any group do not stay behind while the workers perform. They rather place themselves before the group to inspire the group in the accomplishment of the organization goals.
Leadership involves leadership styles. By leadership style, we mean the way in which the functions of leadership are carried out, the way in which the manager typically behaves toward member of the group.
  1.2     STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCHED PROBLEM
One of the most researched and the least understood variable of the management process is leadership for years, scholars have been investigating the nature of leadership. Only in the recent years have researchers conducted systematic investigation that gave useful insight into dimension of leading?  Even with this, there is still an increasing difficulty establish the fact that leaders achieve the desired result as at when needed. Managers are said to be empower to determine labor needs, select, orient, appraise, compensate, develop and motivate their employees. Many managers are either novices on the above area or they devote less time and attention to it. It is very clear to all that machines cannot operate themselves without employees’ assistance neither can financial do. The university plc, Nigeria breweries, zain Nigeria, are nothing without their employees. When all the workers of the above establishment go on strike, the impact of leadership style becomes clearer and this is because at such point everything comes to halt.
Hence, good leadership style becomes in dispensable, if an organization must thrive to achieve its objective and operate efficiently and effectively. In appropriate use of some style of leadership generate negative attitude in the employees toward their performance in the organization today. The intention of this research work is therefore to examine the impact of leadership style on employee’s performance based on the following questions.
i.    Does leadership style with human affect the employee performance?
ii.    Does leadership style influence the productivity of the organization?
iii.    Does leadership with human relation in mind boost motivation?
iv.     Does the autocratic leadership style lower employee motivation and thereby reduce production?
1.3     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
  Since an organization requires a leader, without the organization may not function properly, the purpose of acquiring human service, developing their skills motivation them and ensuring their loyalty become a vital instrument in achieving employees will be both effective and efficient. On the contrary an organization without this sort employee runs the risk of going out of business. However, the study will concern itself with the following objectives;
i.    To find out leadership style(s) in place in the organization .
ii.    To find out the impact of this leadership style(s) on employee performance.
iii.    To find out which leadership style(s) can result in maximum efficiency and effectiveness of employees.
iv.    To ascertain the extent to which leadership style(s) impact on employees relationship.
1.4        SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The field of leadership style is a challenging one, researching this area is not easy, as one must keep pace with the dynamic of leadership style. As old problem are solved new ones surface and changes takes place everyday in the attitude of people to work and change are posed to the workers. For this reason, the study is based on the PLC Lagos.
  The study covers the senior staff, junior staff and manager (supervision) of the organization. In carrying out this research project, effort will be limited to the operations of the unilever (nig.) plc Lagos. The personnel and technical service unit of the company will be selected.
1.5        RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY
Effective leadership can be seen from high productivity, reduced turnover and absenteeism as well as job satisfaction which will lead to the attainment of organizational goals and objectives. Leadership is incomplete without communication which update the employees with the latest work system and management decision. This in a way gives the employee a sense of belonging. In this reguide, numerous benefits are bound to accrue from this study.
 The relevance of this study therefore is:
i.    It will help to educate the manager and other organization members on the best leadership style to adopt for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
ii.     It help to enlighten the different group/sectors in the organization and also to the external environment.
iii.    Finally, it will be of immense benefit to future researchers, who would like to research into the field of leadership and productivity.
1.6        ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
      Unilever Nigeria PLC is the oldest manufacturing company in Nigeria. The company was established in 1923 to manufacture soap using local oil. Over the years, the company diversified and expanded its operation to the production and marketing of some house and toilet soap like lux, astails and non-soapy detergents, food and personal products like toothpaste, body cream, lotion, baby-care products as well as beverages (tea& milk) etc
In particular and through selected acquisition, the company was incorporated in Nigeria as a private company in 1923 under the name lever Broths (NIG.) Ltd. This was change to West Africa Soap Company in 1924, unilever overseas in 1955, and subsequently to its former name unilever Brother (NIG.) Ltd in 1973, when the company went public .in accordance with the Nigeria enterprise promotion act of 1972, 40% of the company’s equity was sold to Nigeria citizens by the unilever overseas holding and was increased to 60%in 1978.
In other to ensure sustainable focus in management, the company operates some factory site at apapa, which was commissioned 1924 and started with the production of bar soap brands using palm oil, and extended to toilet soap brands. The second factory was at Aba, which was establish in 1958 was devoted to the production of sunlight soap and sundry soap. The company makes such popular brand such as omo,    RIM, lox powder. The third factory is the company ultra modern factory at agbara, ogunstate, which was commissioned in 1983 were the company produces edible products, such product are royco magi cub, blue hand, planta etc. the fore factory is located at isolo lagos where popular product like pears baby oil and lotion, lotus, Vaseline-petroleum jelly and pond range of skin and hair care product produced
1.7    LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The research was face with the following constraint in the course of this work
a.    Smallness of the sample size.
b.    Low response rate
c.    Limits time resources
d.     Questionnaire design
e.    The imprecise measurement of variables
f.    Information constrain