Leadership Practices, Stakeholder Involvement and Performance of National Government Departments in Kenya

Abstract

The performance in most of the National Government departments in Kenya has been average over the years leading to disparities in access to resources and quality services. There is scanty literature on leadership practices and the performance of the departments available. Thus, this study assessed the influence of leadership practices on the performance of the departments moderated by stakeholder involvement. The study adopted quantitative and qualitative mixed research design guided by positivism research philosophy. It used a validated semi – structured questionnaire for data collection from a sample of 195 respondents drawn from National Government Heads of Departments in the Counties. The resultant data was analyzed to generate descriptive and inferential statistics which were used to draw inferences. The study established that leadership practices significantly influence the performance of departments in the National Government of Kenya moderated by stakeholder involvement. To improve on the performance, the management should review the stakeholder involvement management and the leadership practices adopted with a view of re – engineering the implementation process to provide for a performance improvement framework. The respondents were drawn from the National Government Departments in the Counties which excluded the views of Heads of Departments based at the headquarters of the National Government Departments. This is the first study on leadership practices, stakeholder involvement and performance of the National Government departments in Kenya to the best of the researchers. It added knowledge on the leadership practices and stakeholder involvement influence on the performance of public sector organizations.