Leadership Styles and Service Delivery of Staff in Public Polytechnic Libraries in South-West, Nigeria

Abstract

Service oriented organisations are always concerned with the quality of their service delivery. Service delivery is a major yardstick in determining the relevance, effectiveness and significance of academic libraries. The study investigated the influence of leadership styles on the service delivery of polytechnic library staff in South-west, Nigeria. Survey research method using questionnaire was adopted to gather data for the study. The population of the study is three hundred and twenty-five (325) staff from twenty-three (23) public polytechnic libraries in South-west, Nigeria. Total enumeration technique was adopted for the respondents for the questionnaire. Quantitative data provided insight into the prominent leadership styles of library staff towards the quality of service delivered. Specifically, the finding revealed that autocratic (Means = 3.2648; SD = 0.628) and democratic (Means = 3.2457; SD = 0.508) styles are the prominent leadership styles adopted by the library staff in Southwest, Nigeria. It was found that leadership style is positively related to service delivery (r = .425; p<0.05). It was thus recommended that hybrid method should be employed by heads of libraries to provide effective library services since one type of a leadership may not produce the needed quality service delivery