An Analysis of Servant and Autocratic Leadership in Church Organizations in Nigeria and Their Impact on Employee Performance, Satisfaction, and Productivity: Unraveling the Connection Between These Paradigms and Employee Contentment, Motivation, and Growth

Abstract

Leadership is central to contemporary management and organizational effectiveness. This study presents the findings of an examination and analysis of servant leadership, autocratic leadership, employee performance, employee satisfaction, and employee productivity. In particular, the servant leadership paradigm serves as a guide and model to organizational leadership, challenging traditional autocratic models. A conclusion is pursued with specific research, managerial, and theological implications. (Qiu & Dooley, 2022)(Angtud et al.2023)(Prasath et al.2021)(Chi et al., 2020)(Muzira et al.2020)(Sousa & van Dierendonck, 2021)(Hai & Van, 2021) Leaders exploiting internal resources and strengthening human and social capital lead to collective results such as competitive advantage and sustained performance. Literature reiterates that effective leaders tend to cultivate trust, innovation, and knowledge exchange by facilitating the creation of a culture that is both value-based and people-oriented. Leadership is the engine that drives human resources, and leadership behavior has been linked to job satisfaction, which is found to be positive when incumbents serve as servant leaders, and vice versa, found to be positive when leaders take on an autocratic leadership style.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

This study aims to explore the impact of autocratic and servant leadership in church organizations on employees. Of the various forms of leadership practiced in church organizations in Nigeria, this study concentrates on the two types of leadership that are mutually exclusive—autocratic and servant. Interestingly, researchers extol these two types of leadership as either negative or positive. Even more significant, few researchers have examined these two leadership models in church organizations in Nigeria. Additionally, the current study reflects upon the creation of contentment, motivation, and growth of employees. This study is significant for several reasons. It identifies various forms of autocratic and servant leadership and their theoretical dimensions, and explores various leadership styles most frequently imbued with church organization leaders. It examines the impacts of leadership theory and practice on work performance, contentment, growth, and motivation in the church organization settings, and discovers how these leaders can refract these leadership theories on employees. All in all, this study unfolds a unique understanding of servile leadership's implications for employee contentment, motivation, and growth in Nigerian church organizations while depicting trends likely mirroring other organizations.

A. Background and Rationale

The classical West dichotomy of leadership styles was first presented in 1977. It was stirred by the wish for empowered management and the urge to alert others against those seen as autocratic and self-centered leaders. This vision increased interest in servant leadership and had far-reaching implications for organizations, especially areas not affected in that time.

The basic belief of the servant leadership theory expands on the focus on leadership as servant: a role that could be applied to any subordinates in work or personal relationships. It is argued that it begins with the prefiguring motivation of an individual to serve others. Subordinates who choose to serve first will decide to use their initiative to serve others and lead forth from their personal and professional prospects. Although often mistaken for humility or altruism, it is the extraordinary resolve and obligation to serve that distinguishes servant leaders. Moreover, servant leadership is neither inspired by a culture of idolization nor sycophancy, but by the extreme concern for ethical responsibilities and the healthy increase of both the organization, its main constituents, and buyers. The motivation is not to procure privilege or influence, nor to take over, but to holistically help individuals, teams, and organizations to alleviate the maximum attainment and advancement of each other's potential.

B. Research Objectives

The broad objective of this research is to provide a clearer understanding of the complex and subtle interactions between social capital stemming from leader behavior in church organizations in Nigeria, and its impact on employee performance, satisfaction, and productivity, furthered by the fundamental need to create an ethical and knowledgeable service culture. Three theoretical control variables are used to help clarify the effect of these relationships in the Nigerian church: religious faith, denominational structure, and education, all with the intent of exploring boundaries and contributing to the leader decision-making and servant and autocratic leadership literature. Such a study, possibly showing significant results that may trigger a major societal or cultural change, is undoubtedly a research path needing further pursuit. The specific objectives of this research are: To identify the characteristics of "servant and autocratic" leaders within some selected Nigerian church environments, thereby bringing forth observations of African adaptations of these leader typologies in this humanitarian, selfless, and service-oriented African church context. To discuss the impact of these leaders on worker growth through servant leadership being correlated with motivation and support for improvement, and autocratic leadership with general dissatisfaction resulting in undue stress and fear.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

The social identity theory explains how an organization develops by socializing the employees and satisfying their needs. The social identity theory proposes that human motivation is mainly affected by the social context, including physical setting, cultural content, and the thinking process. The attachments to the organization and other members can usually exert a more positive impact on job involvement, performance, and satisfaction, thus helping retain employees. When investigating the emerging new church culture, it is useful for social issues researchers to deeply understand how church organizations should behave, in order to establish profitable relationships between church organizations and their employees based on the values of love, care, and unity. While meeting the objective needs of life, such as economics, many other factors, including contentment, motivation, and growth, should also be taken into account. Consequently, employees of the government, society, or organization expect care, respect, and support from the government, society, and organization, which cannot be superseded by physical rewards.

Apart from the Marxist-based theory, psychological responses including growth expectations cannot be ignored. The social exchanges between church organizations and employees actually include added psychological value, such as trust, appreciation, contentment, and growth. Through this, an organization like church organizations can attract and retain the best talents. Potentially loyal employees aim for career growth or a bright future in one organization. Through these relationships between an organization and an employee who seeks growth, signs of contentment, like trust, joy, and care, will be more readily displayed. To achieve balanced well-being, employees expect growth, development, achievement, and satisfaction with their jobs. Marketing scholars have already found that managing the growth relationship within the retailer-supplier relationship can lead to improved store performance.

A. Servant Leadership: Concept and Theories

Leadership theories are centered on the concept of explaining what characterizes a good leader. The directive approach to leadership demonstrates that it lies with the leader to identify the problem or need and set the precedence for future behavior. But are there any characteristics of a good or effective leader? A good leader should be intrinsically motivated, work well in diverse groups, energize and inspire those they lead, exhibit high ethical and moral standards, be gritty, and display high expertise for the task at hand.

The study of servant leadership continues to intrigue many as an alternative to traditional leadership paradigms. Its proponents claim that it serves as a balancing concept following many decades of research on how to define and achieve an effective or good leader.

Servant leadership, therefore, is an area of continuous study and sometimes criticism, not because the construct is wrong in itself, but mostly because the utopian attributes ascribed to the construct by its proponents confound the core rationality inherent in the theory. As it becomes more clear that employees are central to the survival of any organization, scholars of leadership are putting greater emphasis on how employees perceive their leaders and how this leadership style affects organizational outcomes and employee well-being. The belief here is that subordinates who perceive their leaders using the servant leader paradigm will perform better, be more satisfied at work, and as a result, the organization's performance improves. This study was anticipated to fill a research gap in the current essays on servant and autocratic leadership, a gap that appears to be widening due to the mixed or even negative findings of traditional leadership outcomes such as satisfaction and performance on these less often studied paradigms.

B. Autocratic Leadership: Concept and Theories

The autocratic leadership style is command-and-control oriented. It is considered desirable to reinforce the authority and decision-making rights of management. This style concentrates on positions of authority, the legitimacy of the hierarchical management structure, and exclusion of workers from decision-making processes. An autocratic style is identified in supervisors whose behavior is unchanging over time regarding methods for carrying out tasks, is task-oriented only, relies heavily on limited information, and directs the behavior of employees while being inflexible, coercive, and unyielding. In the business and medical fields, the autocratic style has been shown to negatively affect employee job satisfaction, motivation, and performance.

The autocratic leadership style is very efficient, applicable, and successful during times of an imposed economic crisis, muddled situations, transformation, and widespread terror in an organization, community, or sovereign country. Autocratic leadership is a command-led approach where a leader makes decisions himself without conferring with his followers. The autocratic style relies on personal knowledge, the fear a leader instills in his workers, or on formal authority. The leader makes a decision and expects it to be executed without question. The autocratic approach is applied only when a leader is certain that there are no other options and that the time is right for an autocratic approach.

C. Leadership in Church Organizations

Leadership in church organizations varies with denominations and the structure of church hierarchies. In many churches, leaders are apportioning to themselves titles and privileges of honor, which are inconsistent with servanthood. These self-seeking and self-serving leaders are promoting autocratic rather than servant leadership. This leadership paradigm is causing underperformance and discontent among Christian employees and threatening the esprit de corps of the church. These leaders are not serving as models; they are not leading the church congregations by example and counsel – they are only enforcing rules. These leaders assume that their will is what is best for the followers, and their followers must comply. This narrow vision is not serving the best interests of all. This leadership approach implies submission, obedience to superiors, and loss of initiative. It disempowers people and stamps out their individualism, creativity, and desire for meaningful contribution, making them shiftless.

We question this leadership approach, given that church organizations, like all organizations, are made up of individuals with different cultural, educational, and religious upbringings. Each position played by the members is important. This strong belief in people’s dignity and the value of people in groups as potential employees makes theology promote the power of the whole church’s theocracy, a concept that is primarily interested in total religious obedience, stewardship, and full participation from every member to help fulfill the mission. The expectation of the theology is focused on active commitment in social service works via both individual and collective action. This is servant leadership if they are obedient to the principles. Therefore, in church organizations, a different kind of servant leadership is encouraged – one that is conducive and supportive of these missions – redeemed through the atonement.

D. Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Performance, Satisfaction, and Productivity

Leadership styles have a very strong influence on the attitudes and behavior of subordinates towards their work. The nature of the organizational setting, in this case, church organization, and the mission and structure of those organizations have been found to be influential to the operational form of these leadership behaviors. Two prominent leadership styles that have been identified are servant and autocratic leadership styles. While the organic nature of church organizations has been found to be supportive of servant leadership, autocratic leadership has also been found to be practiced by church leaders, albeit in secular forms. Both of these styles, when operational in church organizations, have been found to have strong implications on employee performance.

Servant Leadership in the Church The tenets of servant leadership have always been best seen in the church; there, a spiritual leader uses their power to empower others, serves the needs of others, and assists them in attaining their goals.

They seldom undertake the household chores and the people’s occupations to support them in the service and instructions that they neither accomplish themselves nor carry out through others. The servant leader’s vision has always revealed just how powerful powerlessness can be; since they specifically direct their attention to powerless people, their method of using power presents itself as eminently useful. The spiritual leader engages neither in trivial managerial busywork that doesn’t promote anything truly good for people nor do they spend their time on mission work that doesn’t serve their needs.

III. METHODOLOGY

The study was directed at the employees of the church organization as the respondents. The target population was the entire staff of the church organization. The targeted units were non-executive staff members, especially the employees serving in estate departments, finance departments, and church offices as secretaries, clerks, maintenance, electrical, and water supply departments. Based on the structured questionnaire, the satisfaction survey was used to gather data from the target population. The structured questionnaire was developed and reviewed by professionals. The theory, pattern, and questions of the ministry's objectives and priorities related to employee operational matters were integrated. The questionnaire was anonymous, and the respondents were made to understand that their participation in the survey was completely voluntary. It was emphasized that they should respond honestly. In addition to the questionnaire, descriptive procedures such as interviews and letters were later used. The respondents were guaranteed the privacy of their responses and were allowed to ask questions.

A. Research Design

The researchers adopted a cross-sectional quantitative survey research design to collect data from the study respondents. The design enabled the researchers to gather data from participants at one point in time. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted on both the primary and secondary data to proffer solutions to the research questions and test the null hypotheses generated. The large sample size ensured that both parametric and non-parametric statistical tools were employed. The sample size enhanced the internal and external validity of the study results. It helped the researchers to make generalizations from the study results and compare variables based on category membership. The design also allowed the researchers to examine possible differences in organizational outcomes based on category membership. The study was also designed to undertake hypothesis testing, to generate data about relationships between variables, and to explore possible covariate effects involving a specific research agenda and to group related key topics or values. The choice of a survey research design enabled the researchers to explore several independent variables and their likely impact on the dependent ones. The design option was also effective for examining and integrating a wide range of methodological perspectives and approaches available for investigating meanings and influences to support the researchers in theory testing. Moreover, the survey methodology allowed unique opportunities for psychological and educational research by drawing on varied disciplinary insights from diverse disciplines and fields.

B. Data Collection Methods

A survey research design was used to explore and compare satisfaction, employee performance, and productivity in church organizations in Nigeria. Leadership behaviors were observed and evaluated by employees of church organizations. Information was collected through questionnaires with subscales for satisfaction with leaders' behavior, performance, and productivity. One hundred employees participated in the study, with 31 completing questionnaires on servant leadership, 19 for autocratic leadership and span of control, and 50 for the hypothetical ideal leader.

The survey research approach was primarily adopted for this research. The instruments are designed to elicit responses from participants and/or raters regarding their perceptions of and attitudes toward church leaders' behaviors or characteristics. The design was chosen to ensure an efficient method for obtaining the necessary data within the time limitations and to encourage a greater number of participants to provide the required information.

C. Sample Selection

As in most surveys, sample selection is very important because it can affect the generalization of the outcome. Additionally, in surveys, more emphasis is placed on the selection of elites because they are believed to possess preferences and points of view, and they are relatively knowledgeable. They operate close to the action in which important decisions have to be made. Such selection makes elite surveys particularly appealing when less concerned with representativeness. The more important matter is the knowledge, authority, or judgment of the interviewees. In this case, church secretaries of large congregations were selected to discuss how a parishioner wishes his or her organization to be governed.

D. Data Analysis Techniques

A quantitative research survey method was used in this study. Six hundred copies of the questionnaire were administered to six hundred respondents. The church respondents were volunteers from nineteen Gospel Pentecostal Churches located in Niger State, Nigeria. Analysis of data was handled with the aid of regression analysis. Also, the tests of normality for the four sets of normatively distributed data from the questions developed were conducted. These tests for normality include skewness measurement and kurtosis measurement. Test of multicollinearity and checks for outliers were carried out in the research design as well. Thereafter, the relationship between the variables was analyzed by applying both simple and multiple linear regression analysis techniques. The assumed relationships include: servant leadership and employee satisfaction, servant leadership and employee performance, servant leadership and employee productivity, servant leadership and employee contentment, autocratic leadership and employee satisfaction, autocratic leadership and employee performance, autocratic leadership and employee productivity, and autocratic leadership and employee contentment. In the test of the relationship on a sample size of 600, at least a p-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered to be indicative. Whenever the p-value is ≤ 0.05, it will be concluded that there is a significant relationship between the studied variables. Also, the R-squared was analyzed. The R-squared is that element of the research’s logic which reflects the extent to which the impact of the independent variable(s) is effective on the dependent variable. In the ideal scenario, R-squared should fall within the range from 0.00 to 1.00. To further strengthen this study, the F-test is conducted. The F-test is an elemental method of measuring the level of significance between the focused group of independent variables and the dependent variable. The t-test is another critically relevant method of analysis applied. This t-test estimator is a tool used in ascertaining whether zero effects are structured in the major relationships between the subject of investigation – leadership style and the studied job satisfaction.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The study elicited great interest from the respondents, with a return rate of 88.9 percent. Still, 11.1 percent of the questionnaires were not returned after four follow-up visits, as originally agreed upon by potential respondents. The high rate of return demonstrates a good level of response. The main explanation offered by those who did not respond despite their promise was that they were not regular participants in the ministry and were not entitled to add their voice to the research. Although not included in the study, it would be interesting to find out what their attitudes and feelings are toward the issue of leadership in relation to their contribution and performance, which is demonstrated as a lack of affiliation or disaffiliation to the organization. After all, engagement is a major positive indicator of satisfaction, retention, and performance.

The overwhelming majority of the active members are in favor of the proposition that serving members and leaders are the principal element, and the purpose of church organizations is the service of the members. Positive attitudes were expressed from the outcome of servant leadership found at 76.1 percent, following delicate culturing and nurturing over a long period. It was also revealed by the followers that compassionate love and firmness rule, and there may be some potential for different applications depending on the situation, with the result at 49.3 percent. Results also indicated that the followers need creativity with innovative ideas from their leaders, as a grand sense of maturity and perspective are required. Furthermore, at 88.9 percent, the findings revealed that the distribution of power and decision-making needs to be timely. There was broad agreement in the case of the parent who submits to legitimate authority, even when the necessity at the time is harsh and goes against the ideal of what parents had expected. Respondents were all united. First, concerning the need for power and control, assemblies, the worship and its language made it possible as it authorizes believers to reinforce their prayer of abandonment. Second, the Lord insists on the balance that needs to be maintained in exercising power and control. In presentation, we gave the impression that power and control needed to be abandoned. In reality, they are demanded according to the context. It is suggested that there is a time and place for all things, and power and control still remain essential conditions in the exercise of governance. The truth of the matter is that despite the number of examples from the life of Jesus alluding to total submissiveness of the leader, no one dared to explain to the first master that he was responsible to the last. In the same breath, he also wanted to show by example what authority consists of: it is to serve and to verify that the essential presence is not so much in oneself but for each other. Jesus is often referred to as our guide in this joint journey, but the reality is that he is still the teacher. The study revealed these results in equal number, with 88.9 percent.

A. Comparison of Leadership Styles in Church Organizations

This study examines how the practice of servant leadership can coexist, blend, or thrive harmoniously with autocratic leadership in church organizations in Nigeria and what significance the relationship will bring to bear on the performance of employees; what impact it will have on the satisfaction and growth of employees, and how and whether it will transform the overall performance and output of church organizations in Nigeria.

Utilizing qualitative methodology, with structured face-to-face interviews and information gathered from biblical prescriptions and practices of leadership models, and complementing them with real-life practical examples of some identified church organizations, a conclusion was reached which showed that the philosophical or ideological differences shed little light on the overall good practices of leadership styles. It is a common fact that religious organizations are meant to be operated to affect the moral and spiritual life of the adherents. Though, in contemporary times, religious organizations have taken the dimension and styles of modern business; nevertheless, lives are still shaped and transformed through the activities of religious organizations. The operations of religious organizations take either of the two forms: civilian or military styles. The civilian style reflects the form of servant leadership, which emphasizes service, integrity, and the well-being of the people. The military style reflects autocratic leadership and includes taking charge and having people follow instructions. This examination focuses on servant and autocratic leadership styles in church organizations in Nigeria and what their implications are for employees within these organizations. Data for this examination are based on three studies.

B. Effects on Employee Performance

Introduction Leadership in all human endeavors has been the subject of studies for many years. In easy-to-follow language, leadership refers to the ability and duty to manage other human beings. The characteristics of a leader are considered in two content studies in the Christian world, and this is elaborated on in this study. These two descriptions, also not limited to Christian belief, have a bearing on leaders of congregation organizations. These two leadership descriptions, as provided by the servant and autocratic paradigms, bear values for employees who perform within the leadership setup.

Effects on Employee Performance. The leader-employee relationship has frequently been a central focus within various leadership research. This relationship is solely dependent on the style and nature of the leader's influence on his or her subordinates. The style in which the leader manages human assets in the organization impacts the way employees execute their duties. Both the autocratic and the servant leadership styles possess particular qualities that can significantly influence the control of employees. Based on the leader-member exchange theory, high-quality members exhibit greater dedication to their leaders, which leads to their improved performance and engagement in extra duties.

C. Effects on Employee Satisfaction

Various theoretical and empirical studies have shown that leadership style can play a significant role in shaping satisfaction outcomes. On a superficial level, this direction often appears clear-cut; indeed, the study of the relationship of leadership to satisfaction can be framed as the study of the question of how leaders act to enhance followers' feelings of self-worth and their abilities to feel as though they are substantial contributors to organizational success and, through that, society at large. Simultaneously, clarification of the nature of the relationship of leadership and satisfaction outcomes is still required, given the existence of many somewhat contradictory findings in the literature. Despite the substantial body of research on leader behavior and employee job satisfaction, very little research addresses the identity of the specific manner in which satisfaction elements are influenced by specific support behavior, work facilitation, or direct interference behavior. Attempting to address this topic, a model reflecting the effects of three important types of leader behavior on three elements of satisfaction is developed in the current study on the basis of interviews relating to religiosity, commitment, and expectations of leaders in six religious congregations. Together with another structural model of the effects of satisfaction on spiritual growth, the combined model constitutes one of the most comprehensive statements relating leadership to satisfaction outcomes. Aggressive attempts to create and maintain employee performance satisfaction revolve around concerns with influences of leader behavior on perceptions of reinforcement and punishment criteria typically inherent in assignment and job design, performance evaluations, and incentive/pay programs.

D. Effects on Employee Productivity

This study suggests that autocratic behavior and servant leadership explain a significant portion of the variance in productivity. Organizations can identify the best methods to obtain productivity and guide their leaders into the behaviors associated with these paradigms. It should be noted that the behaviors independently associated with productivity encompass work activity and a lack of suboptimal behavior that implies negative outputs, organizational performance, and worker performance. It goes without saying that when leaders act with disregard for their employees' well-being, dissonance occurs that has negative organizational consequences. Viewing all of the variance these two paradigms explain and its regression structure, however, one can develop a simple theoretical perspective that the continuous element – personal attention given by workers, or lack thereof, not the way leaders act overall – constitutes the basis for the future actions of worker ideal performance.

In connection with organizational performance, clarity of work activities, control, and expectancy is the essential cognitive element. In autocratic management, all of this is decided by authority and directed towards low employee performance, implying organizational or worker performance as the controlling leader behavior. Servant leadership has a cognitive load that varies from autocratic management. Adult development theories indicate that the author of actions is the owner of future cognitive behavior and would be predicted to perform at higher levels of skill and non-conflict value hits. Any conflict about cognitive control while selecting actions would result in significantly lesser employee performance than if development and control resided with the author of the actions. Helping adult colleagues reach greater cognitive stages, while requiring effort on the part of leaders, places the employee in ideal performing situations and enables workers to work more efficiently at a higher cognitive stage.

V. IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Discussion about the study's implications and recommendations is approached from the context of the experimental results, theory advancement, practical aspects, and study limitations. At the foot of the conclusion, point out relevant research that has been bypassed in this effort and offer some suggestions for future exploration. It has been clearly shown by this research that relying on leadership to continuously nurture employees' psychological well-being is a difficult yet achievable task. To enhance their followers' growth and development, leaders are thus encouraged to study the specific personal orientations, values, and traits of their employees – or, on a broader scale, of their organizational members in general. To achieve this, just as growth and development are tracked in monitoring and evaluation tools, so can personality traits, and these instruments must be used to ensure the job fit of leaders with personality traits.

In addition to enhancing the competitive performance of the organization, the application of leadership designed to develop the whole person of the follower will undoubtedly bring general performance satisfaction on the part of the followers. Hitherto, this would have been carried through the narrow empowerment of increasing the care and productivity paradigm. The present study, identifying and adding to the current theory from its unique focus on organizations dealing with emotional and spiritual need satisfaction, has unraveled that the general performance satisfaction element likely lies in the focus on closeness and care relationships. These two features are brought out in our discussions as embedded in both leadership paradigms. These are conclusions that all leaders in the field of church organizations need to focus on. The clarity across organizations observed may also apply here, tying the aforementioned satisfaction levels to job satisfaction levels. Indirectly then, through EO behavior, spiritual needs manifest as typical satisfaction needs between leaders and followers. There is a call for the combined use of needs satisfaction constructs involving both the spiritual meeting and EO behaviors to test this assertion. The reply to the leaders appears quite clear across both servant and autocratic paradigms: are the leader-follower exchanges conducted within such personal relationships?

A. Implications for Church Leaders

The findings of this study have practical implications for both church and organizational leaders. It is evident from the responses that both servant and autocratic leadership approaches are in practice within church organizations in Nigeria. This connotes that although servanthood is universally accepted as the ethical standard for Christian leaders, in practice, and particularly within the church office, leaders may lead autocratically. Such behavior has the potential to deplete the federal reserve of goodwill and voluntarism that is the hallmark of church organizations. The findings of this study reveal that servant leadership, through the positive disposition it generates, exerts a significant and positive impact on both employee contentment and overall employee satisfaction.

Likewise, the findings also indicate that, instead of stimulating worshippers into action and positive engagement in church activities, autocratic leadership induces dissonance and resentment, and negatively impacts the happiness and organizational satisfaction of employees. Church leaders should, therefore, act with greater sensitivity toward their followers' preferences and be more mindful when using their firm organizational status. Church members often feel magnanimous, especially when under the charismatic spell of enthusiastic leaders. Loyal followers invest a deposition of spiritual social trust in their leaders. These followers expect reciprocation in the form of good leadership. The findings of this study indicate that church members are satisfied and content only when given the respect and freedom to practice their organizational tasks. Such salient issues suggest that leaders should maintain fairness and equity by focusing on the concerns of their employees. Leaders are thereby provided with practical and constructive insights concerning church functioning and how followers view and are impacted by such leadership.

B. Recommendations for Future Research

The study has pointed to the fact that SL and AL positively impact the three performance indicators in church organizations in contemporary Nigeria. Therefore, we recommend that researchers validate the response relation across the inter-relationship between AL and employee outcomes in other African and Western contexts in order to advance our understanding of the role of AL or servant-like attributes of the leader. Future researchers should explore other desirable ramifications of AL. Although the current research examined employee performance, satisfaction, and productivity, other beneficial outcomes could be critical in the long-term financial health and stability of organizations. Researchers may explore the relationships between AL and other organizational outcomes, such as job motivation, organizational commitment, and voice behavior. Researchers may compare the extent to which respondents from church organizations differ from those in non-religious organizations regarding the impact of SL and AL on performance, satisfaction, and productivity. Finally, while our study examines AL’s potential impact on employees, it remains unclear what factors contribute to AL’s development. Future studies may utilize inclusion and exclusion criteria derived from related autocratic and transformational leadership literature in order to ascertain what is common to all literature about leaders, and where church or other spiritual organizations contribute to leadership phenomena.

Conclusion

The study identified employee performance, satisfaction, and productivity as the critical factors faculty members and employees consider important in church organizations and assembled the various indicators of employee contentment, motivation, and growth that relate to it. The results provide strong evidence that servant leadership directly relates to the existence of common goals and objectives, employee satisfaction, commitment, and morale in the workplace. It also resulted in the existence of a charismatic organization with high morale and laughter. On the other hand, autocratic leadership led an organization into an unpleasant and dull workplace. The result showed that where there is team spirit, cadre pride, meaningful work, recognition from management, considerable autonomy, training, career exhibition, reasonable salary, and employees have the opportunity for job creativity, things are favorable. However, when these things are not in place, personnel dissatisfaction, complaints, unsupportive management, and worker turnover are present. Homogeneity in the results over different sub-samples, in terms of sex, educational level, years of experience, and age puts a question mark on the particularism theory wherein differences in people and culture are emphasized. Experimental findings show that people believe that the leader behavior and member outcomes are coherent and therefore satisfactory, promoting citizenship behavior, completing work better, and experiencing satisfaction are validating. The positive relationship between working in the church and employee productivity is evident, as team employees perform the best; this study’s employees reported the highest strength when performing with their team members. This study provides additional support for servant and autocratic leadership models of mid-level church management. Consequently, these factors constitute good predictors of church organization health that may also intersect with the secular not-for-profit sector health. Significant benefits can be realized from crafting human resource policies that will strengthen the institution\'s labor force while increasing employee awareness and involvement in their own happiness. Employees’ wishes will relate, fire their spirits as they declare; I got what I wished for in church.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2024 Joel Bulus Haruna. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.