CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Personality traits and leadership style player a significant role in determining managerial effectiveness.

The emergence of personality traits and managerial leadership dates back to Thomas Carlyle’s “great man” theory, which states that. The history of world was the biography of great men (Carlyle, 2010). In other words history is shaped by the forces of extraordinary leadership (Judge, Piccolo, and Kosaika, (2012). Galton advanced the is theory and found that leadership was unique property of extraordinary individuals and the traits leaders possessed where imitable and cold not be developed.

With the increase in number and size of public servants in Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria, and in the case of public secondary school in which is a case study of this project, employment of more teachers, changes in school structures and enlarged curriculum, the problems of effective managerial leadership by school principals could obviously become more complex. Rapid expansion through the creation of junior and senior secondary schools means that more teachers may have less experience, as experienced principals are no loner available for some schools. in Akwa Ibom State, it is pertinent to note that some schools experiences more conflicts than others, and this is attributed among other things to the principals’ level of managerial leadership effectives, discipline in school is the offspring of effective leadership, while indiscipline is caused by absence of commitment on the part of some principals (Adesina, 2012). Today, on the part of discipline in Nigerian secondary schools is putting the maturity of principals to the severest task.

As the major agents in the promotion of schools effectiveness, principals are the pillars of the educational system especially at the second tier of the educational pyramid. Today, the position of the principal is far more sophisticated and the job is far more complex than in previous decades. The complexity can be seen in the incredible number of functions that the principals are expected to perform daily and often simultaneously. The maintenance of quality and standards in education depend largely on the extent to which they effectively carry out their leadership responsibilities.

Itsueli (2010) opined that the school leader (principal) is required to perform three vital functions: namely

1. To discern and influence the development of goals and policies
2. To establish and co-ordinate educational organizations concerned with planning and implementing appropriate programs
3. To procure and manage the resources necessary to support the managerial system and its planned programs.

• STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It is an establishment fact that the Nigerian civil service as an institution had to respond to the political, social and economic development in the Nigeria society, such response however manifested in various reforms all in an attempt to enhance leadership effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, and welfare package, management of human and financial resources.

However, these reforms have failed in various aspect such as training, staffing, gender, age and experience of staffs. So as to open up its top general administrative levels to those who are technically and mentally qualified.

There have been about nine major civil service reforms between 1945 and 1999, each leaving many landmarks in the civil service in direct response to the political, social and economic changes in the country.

The pervading issue of low morale of workers in the public sector, which has been brought about by poor remunerator, inadequate staffing and inability of the government to pay retirement benefits as at when due, all related to employee welfare problem which leads to ineffectiveness in the discharged of their duties.

Thus, in Akwa Ibom State, in terms of policy planning, control, accountability and political surveillance the civil service has performed dismally. The problem of job dissatisfaction among civil servants in the service which leaders to declining productivity and effectiveness could be trace to lackluster managerial leadership problems.

According to Amagoh (2013:246), the state civil service is now besieged with problems of job dissatisfaction among workers, mal-administration ineffective control, role conflict and ambiguity, uncoordinated disciplinary procedures and general corruption, which gives a poor image to the services.

• PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

1. To find the characteristic of personality trait and managerial leadership effectiveness of public servants in Akwa Ibom State
2. To know the important in age and experience of the public servants.
3. To make recommendation which will help to influence personality traits and managerial effectiveness?

• RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. Is there any significance relationship between principle age and his managerial effectiveness?
2. Is there any significance differences in the managerial effectiveness of male and female?

• Is there any significance differences between the principle experience and managerial effectiveness?

1. Is there any principle temperament intelligence and decisiveness ?
   • RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Ho1:  There is no significance relationship between principals’ age and his managerial effectiveness.