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GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2020ISSN 2320-9186570commitment to meet its mission. The yielding of most company usually relies on employeeperformance thatis a critical element in all successful productivity and it is because ofdeveloping best leadership style (Ibid).Therefore, leadership style is considered as a driving force for employee performance. Thisreality does not far from being the case for the Ethiopian Railways Corporation as well. Infact, other factors have also its place. The railway industry in Ethiopia is not a recentphenomenon. It begins around the end of the 19th century during the reign of EmperorMenelik II. But still the country is not interconnected via railway line networks.Ethiopian Railways Corporation (ERC) was established in 2007 by RegulationNo.141/2007to: Develop railway infrastructure Provide freight and passenger railway transport services and Engage in other related activities necessary for the attainment of its purpose.1.2 Statement of the problemEmployee performance which includes implementing, defined duties, meeting deadlines,team work and achieving departmental goals. In different institutions and organizationssuch as Ethiopian Railways Corporation, they need to have a sound leadership styles whichincludes transformative approaches, democratic and laissez-faire approaches to leadership.However, at Ethiopian Railways Corporation, there is common friction between individualresponsibilities and roles as stated by the annual review report (ERC annual report, 2017)this causes internal politics. Different researches conducted by Namutebi (2012) andKmugisha (2012) tied with findings, identified that lots of authoritative leadershiptendencies existed and thus this works for as a background for low innovation and declinedcommitment that greatly affects employee performance as was indeed observed through thestudy findings. This indicates that the inability to achieve the planned performance isbecause of lacking the tacticalinvolvements of specific leadership styles to the specificsituation. Cases in Ethiopian Railways Corporation also do not far from this reality. So, itneeds to put clear leadership style that can improve the Corporation employees’performance in delivering services and constructing railway networks.2GSJ 2020www.globalscientificjournal.com

GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2020ISSN 2320-9186571As Namutebi (2012) and Kmugisha (2012) indicated that there have been continuousdownward trends the performance of employees registered in public institutions inEthiopia. These may be happening as a result of numerous factors such as inadequatefunding, lack of motivation, work climate, leadership and leadership’s styles among others.They have explored intensively other factors except leadership style as a factor thatinfluence impacts of job performance of staff. As the preliminary interview showedemployees of Ethiopian Railways Corporation are not happy with the management of thecorporation despite its huge plans to expand. Thus, identifying these gaps helped theresearcher to assess employee performance and the leadership style of the corporation andgive an insight for the management about employee performance with regard to leadershipstyles impact.Therefore, this study will try to further investigate the impacts of leadership style thataffect employee performance of Ethiopian Railways Corporation. The main purpose of thisresearch is to examine the effect of leadership styles on work performance amongemployees of Ethiopian Railways Corporation.1.3 Objectives of the study1.3.1 General ObjectiveThe general objective of this study is to describe and explore the effect of leadership styleson employee performance of the Ethiopian Railways Corporation pertaining to theeffectiveness of the corporation on selected offices and to give an insight for themanagement regarding the level of employee performance of the corporation to beprofitable and to provide suggestions for their future actions.1.3.2 Specific Objectives1. To identify leadership styles practiced in the Ethiopian Railways Corporation2. To analyze the effect of leadership style on employee performance1.4 Research Questions1. What kind of leadership style is practiced in Ethiopian Railways Corporation?2. To what extent leadership styles and practices has an effect on employeeperformance in the Ethiopian Railways Corporation?3GSJ 2020www.globalscientificjournal.com

GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2020ISSN 2320-91865721.5 Scope of the StudyThe scope of this thesis is to describe and explain the impacts of leadership style onemployee performance in the case of Ethiopian Railways Corporation. Its conceptual scopeis the level of employee performance, impacts of leadership styles such as transformationalleadership, democratic, autocratic, strategic, coach, transactional, bureaucratic and liaisefaire. Regarding its geographical scope, the research focused on the selected oneheadquarter and two depots of Ethiopian Railways Corporation offices. These offices arefound in different areas of Addis Ababa. The research methodology has employeddescriptive and explanatory research design through administering questionnaire toindividual employees, focused group discussion and interviews.1.6 Limitation of the StudyThere are two major factors identified as a limitation to undergone this study. The first oneis there was a big challenge to distribute and collect questionnaires due to COVID-19 fear.And conducting a focus group discussion and making an interview with the managementmember were another critical challenge facing the researcher when conducting the study.This Might led to such obscurity to generalize the study.1.7 Operational Definition1.7.1 LeadershipLeadership is the practice of influencing others to work willingly to achieve organizationalgoal with self-assurance (Lawal, 1993). It is usually well-defined basically as the processof influencing people to use their effort utmost to achieve a particular goals. As to Koontzet al (1985) noted that leadership is the art of inducing people to strive willingly towardsthe attainment of group goals. This concept also expanded to include not only willingnessto work but with passion and confidence.Leadership can be defined as a dynamic process whereby one man impacts others tocontribute willingly to the realization and attainment of objectives with the aspiration ofcommon organizational values of the group that who are representing the spirit ofLeadership in assisting a group or an Organization to attain everlasting growth (Al-Shurafa,2018)4GSJ 2020www.globalscientificjournal.com

GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2020ISSN 2320-91865731.7.2 Leadership StyleLeadership styles defined as a preferred manner of who can tackle duties and personnelcases in carrying out goals set for their teams. Different leadership styles practiced by anymanagement have big impact on employees’ job performance (Mullins, 2004).Leadership style is also the manner or approach of providing, directing, enforcing plansand motivating people which includes the overall outline of explicit and implicitsupervisions and actions taken by leaders (Davis, 1993)1.7.3 Job PerformanceJason A et al. (2015) defined job performance as behavior and the term “results” or “jobperformance results” to describe the outcome from those behaviors. In sum, jobperformance is defined as the value of the set of employee behaviors that contribute, eitherpositively or negatively, to the reach the organization goal (Jason A et al., 2015). Workperformance means the outcomes of the employees about their work and objectives alignwith the organization’s goals and objectives that are achieved by the employees to workeffectively, efficiently and motivation and work performance of the employees measuringusing different techniques of performance appraisal system. Currently most of studied areconducting to measure the performance by reactions of user to performance appraisal(Zafar et al, 2012)Many researchers find out that the employees’ performance depends on employees’satisfaction; this indicates that the highest level of job satisfaction results to better theemployees' performance (Insan et al., 2013).Furthermore, Insan et al. (2013) noted that jobsatisfaction positively and significantly has impact on employees’ performance.1.8 Significance of the StudyThis study brings new insight regarding impacts of leadership style on employeeperformance of Ethiopian Railways Corporation.It can also be a good indicator formanagers to identify the gap between management’s perception of best leadership style andthat of their employees and taking actions to close the gaps. It is also intended to help thecompany management to consider the level of leadership style as per the viewpoint ofemployees so that based upon employee feedbacks the managers might divert theirattention to this valuable essential function of the corporation business and to attract new5GSJ 2020www.globalscientificjournal.com

GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2020ISSN 2320-9186574potential employees and enable them to retain the existing employees. The study willmainly help the organizations to develop such leadership style which will be very critical inproviding them very profitable. It will also assist organizations to clearly identify thebenefit of having competent and well-mannered employees in the right place. Mostimportantly, this study is important for managers of Ethiopian Railways Corporation andother organizations to practice a right leadership style to improve the performance ofemployees and productivity of organization.The study has also the following importance:The findings of this research will help the corporation’s management to understand theimpact of leadership style.It provides literature for the railway industry in connection with employee performance andleadership style.1.9 Organization of the StudyThis paper is organized into five chapters. The first chapter dealt with background of thestudy, statement of the problem, objective of the study, research questions, and methods ofdata collection, significance of the study, limitations of the study, operational definitionsand organizations of the study.The second chapter literature review of the topic which includes the different perspectiveof different authors and various theoretical concepts that relates with different leadershipstyle, its impact on employee performance and issues related with Ethiopian RailwaysCorporation will be discussed. The conceptual framework also will be drawn.The third chapter will deal with the research design, research approaches, population andsampling design, data sources and types, data collection methods, data analysis methods,data reliability and validity, and ethical consideration briefly. The fourth chapter will coverthe data analysis, interpretation, held discussions and draw findings. Finally, the fifthchapter will cover the conclusion, recommendation and forward directions for future work.6GSJ 2020www.globalscientificjournal.com

GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2020ISSN 2320-9186575Chapter Two: Literature ReviewThis chapter tries to present a review of the literature related to the study. The previous studiesconducted in the area of the topic are very significant as they direct the researcher. From thisreview, a conceptual framework using the dependent and the independent variables in the survey isdeveloped, which lays a framework for the study. The chapter has five parts; conceptual definitions,the theoretical review, the empirical literature review, research gap and conceptual framework.2.1 Conceptual Definition2.1.1 Leadership and Leadership StylesLeadership has been well researched over the years. But still, there is lack of a definitionthat is universally accepted. As (Talatet al, 2015), explained leadership is a detailedprocess, which describes forauthority, responsibility and delegation of power. Leadersassist to direct, guide and help their followers (employees) towards achieving theirpersonaland organizational goals and objectives for the organizational and personalbenefits. It asserts that leadership is wide spread process, which involves authority,responsibility and delegation of power. Leaders help to direct, guide and persuade theirfollowers (employees) towards achieving their personal and organizational goals andobjectives. Hence, leadership

leadership style practiced predominantlyby the leader having absolute power over his staffsand affected employee performance negatively. Key words: leadership style, employee performance, Ethiopian Railways Corporation GSJ: Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2020 ISSN 2320-9186 568 GSJ 2020 www.globalscientificjournal.com