Perceived effects of workforce diversity on leadership effectiveness in public sector: a case of Kenya School Of Government, Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

Leadership in the public sector is essential to the effectiveness of their performance (Mora & Ţiclau 2012). The diversity of the labor force is the result of effective leadership (Ogbeide, 2012). The main aim of the study was to establish the effect of work force diversity on leadership effectiveness in public sector in Kenya with specific reference of Kenya School of Government. The specific objectives of the study were to determine the effect of ethnic diversity, gender diversity, age diversity and educational diversity on leadership effectiveness among employees of Kenya School of Government. The study was driven by the theory of social categorization and complexity leadership theory which were used to explain this concept and thus clearly show the relationship between the general objective and the specific variables. The study employed an explanatory research design to hypothesize the relationships between variables. The target population consisted of1945 Kenya School of Government employees. The data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics, while linear regression was used to test hypotheses of the 320 Employees which were selected from the Kenya School of Government using stratified random sampling which was representative of the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select sampled respondents from the target population of employees at Kenya School of Government since they were selected from different departments and all were given equal chance of being selected and thus generate a representative sample for the study. The data collection instrument used for data collection was questionnaires which were presented to respondents based on the various objectives of the study in a closed and open ended questioners. The null hypothesis that states that there is no relationship between workforce diversity and leadership effectiveness was rejected. The results indicated that ethnic diversity (β 1 = 0.375, p < 0.05), gender(β 2 = 0.230, p < 0.05), age diversity (β 3 = 0.241, p < 0.05), and educational diversity (β 4 = 0.158, p< 0.01), all had positive and significant effect on leadership effectiveness. Similarly, the overall R 2 is 0.722 (72.2%).Explaining a strong relationship between diversity of the workforce and effectiveness of leadership. The study concluded that high proportion of workforce diversity was crucial for leadership effectiveness. Finally, the study recommends that Kenya School of Government should come up with workforce diversity aspects to provide new insights into the usefulness effects of workforce diversity on leadership effectiveness in the public sector.