Relationship between Leadership Development Practices and Organizational Success in Selected Universities in Meru County, Kenya

Abstract

Leadership development is a key ingredient to the success of every organization since leaders show the organizational direction in terms of goals setting and achievement. If organizations fail in developing their leaders then it means that there is likelihood of losing the focus leading to organizational failure. Studies have revealed that if proper leadership development is done then organizations tend to perform well in terms of production, profitability and competitiveness. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between leadership development and organizational success in selected Universities in Meru County. The research objectives were to establish how training contributes to organizational success in selected Universities in Meru County, to find out how career development contributes to organizational success in selected Universities in Meru County, to determine how retention strategies contribute to organizational success in selected Universities in Meru County and to find out how talent development contribute to organizational success in selected Universities in Meru County. The theories underpinning the study were human capital theory, talent DNA model and resource based view theory. The researcher adopted a descriptive research design since data was collected from different respondents. Data was collected using a questionnaire as the data collection instrument. The target population was 58 selected staff from respective departments from the selected Universities in Meru County. The researcher did a census where the whole population was examined since the number of respondents is manageable and that the information of every respondent will be very useful to the study. Content validity was used in the study and Cronbach’s Alpha was used to test the reliability of instrument. The data which was collected was analyzed using SPSS and further explained using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics for easier understanding and data was also presented in descriptive tables. The results showed that the instrument was reliable. The findings of the study indicated that training and retention had a greater influence on organizational success as compared to the career development and talent development which didn’t have great influence on organizational success. The study therefore concluded that organizations that put more emphasis on training and retention of its employee had greater chances of success than those that did not have strategies to ensure employees are well trained and they do not leave the organization prematurely. The study therefore recommends that for organizations to succeed they need to invest a lot on employee training and employee retention and also further studies should be done to be able to establish other factors that greatly contributes to organizational success.