Leadership Styles and Public Participation Effectiveness in the County Governance in Kenya

Abstract

Many countries have increasingly adopted public participation as a process that allows citizens to influence and share control over priority setting, policy-making, resource allocations and access to public goods and services. Public participation is widely known to improve governance and contributes to better development projects that carry the interests of all stakeholders. In tandem with this global trend, the Constitution of Kenya 2010 mandates the county governments in Kenya to incorporate public participation in their governance systems. Even though efforts have been made in fostering public participation through legal frameworks, empirical evidence shows that effective public participation is yet to been attained and hence the quality of governance in the county governments remains wanting. Leadership styles are thought to influence the effectiveness of public participation. However, there is a dearth of empirical literature on the relationship between leadership styles and public participation. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the influence of leadership styles on public participation effectiveness in the county governance in Kenya with specific focus on transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, and servant leadership styles. The study also determined the moderating effect of resource allocation on the relationship between leadership styles and public participation effectiveness. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The study population comprised of all the counties in Kenya. Cluster and purposive sampling techniques were used in this study involving 400 respondents. Questionnaires were used to collect data. A pilot test was conducted to assess the reliability and validity of the research tool. Cronbach’s alpha was used to test the internal reliability of the questionnaire items. Using SPSS software version 26, data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis. A response rate of 74% was achieved. The study established that transformational, transactional, and servant leadership styles had significant positive effect on public participation effectiveness whereas laissez-faire had a negative significant effect. The study also found that, when the four leadership styles were jointly applied, servant leadership style contributed the strongest positive effect, followed by transformational and transactional leadership styles. The effect of laissez-faire leadership style became statistically not significant when the four styles were combined. Additionally, the study revealed that resource allocation positively moderated the relationship between leadership styles and public participation effectiveness. Based on the findings, the study concluded that leadership styles influence public participation effectiveness, and that resource allocation moderates the relationship between leadership styles and public participation in the county governance in Kenya. To achieve effective public participation, the study recommends that leaders in the county governments should adopt a combination of transformational, transactional, and servant leadership styles and strive to avoid laissez-faire leadership style. Additionally, the county governments in Kenya should adopt leadership trainings to equip leaders with adequate knowledge of how to apply effective leadership styles and build awareness of the effects of resource allocation as a contextual condition. The findings of this study therefore have implications for theory, practice, and policy. The study made suggestions for future studies.