Strategic Leadership and Organizational Performance: A Case of Southern Africa Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventist Church
Date
2018-09
Authors
Kashandula, Milan Njelwa
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pan Africa Christian University
Abstract
This study addressed strategic leadership and organizational performance in the achievement of organizational goals. The independent construct in this study was strategic leadership and the dependent construct was organizational performance. I used descriptive survey study to collect quantitative data at Southern Africa Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church in South Africa. A descriptive survey involves asking questions in the form of a questionnaire of a large group of individuals. The study was anchored on a causal model of organizational performance & change model developed by Burke & Litwin (1992). Strategic Leadership is anchored on transformational leadership theory which is one of the prominent theories style of leadership which was associated with Burns and Bass. This is a type of research model that is used to obtain data that helps to determine specific characteristics of a group. I used stratified random sampling technique through selecting existing subgroups in the population to access the sample. From the target population, the resultant sample size was 93. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire to top management who are the Union officers and their associates such as president, executive secretaries, chief financial officer and financial officers. Middle managers (departmental directors) and support staff (accountants, secretaries, IT technicians, human resources officers and pension fund administrators) also participated. During the process of data collection, out of the 93 respondents to whom the questionnaire was administered, only 83 filled and returned it. This was a response rate of 89.3%, summarized using the mean and standard deviation from the descriptive statistics. The findings indicated a significant statistical relationship between the independent and dependent variables. This study concluded that strategic leadership, strategic vision and mission, organizational strategic planning, managing individual behaviour and organizational culture change all have positive significant relationships with organizational performance. Therefore, Strategic leadership and organizational performance remains a cornerstone on which organizations can be anchored as they strive to achieve competitive advantages. The findings also showed that vision and mission of the organization should be clearly conveyed to all employees by top management. Departments that are well aligned with organization's vision and mission achieve organizational goals and objectives, and can enhance organizational performance. This study recommended that future studies could be conducted at a later stage in the area of result based leadership and organizational goals in the context of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.