Impact of leadership on business growth: case of Johannesburg Municipality

Abstract

Leadership can be view as a social influence in which a ward councillor seeks voluntary participation of communities and businesses to achieve regional objectives. Leadership styles applied by any organisation play a significant role in improving the services and business growth in local municipalities. The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of leadership on business growth: case of Johannesburg Municipality. Transformational and transactional leadership style were adopted, and the level of service delivery was assessed. Economic growth is based on the decisions made at a higher political level, then reinforced at the local municipalities. A questionnaire with a four-point Likert scale was used to collect data on transformational leadership, transactional leadership styles and service delivery from 120 participants at the local municipalities (Soweto, Sandton and Midrand). The results showed that transformational leadership was the most favourable leadership style compared to transactional leadership. The results indicated that participants were satisfied with service delivery with Soweto ranked the highest, followed by Sandton and then Midrand. Finally the results indicated that there is a strong relationship between service delivery and transformational leadership. Service delivery had a positive correlation with transformational leadership but negative correlation with transactional leadership. The research results are significant for political leadership within the local municipalities for the enhancement of business growth. This study comes to the end with limitations, a brief conclusion and recommendations.