Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to examine the Influence of Servant Leadership on Team Performance in Non-Governmental Agricultural Organizations in Kenya. The study was guided by five research questions namely: how does knowledge exchange influence Team Performance in Non-Governmental Agricultural Organizations in Kenya? what is the influence of emotional exchange on Team Performance in Non-Governmental Agricultural Organizations in Kenya? how does human resource exchange influence Team Performance in Non-Governmental Agricultural Organizations in Kenya? what is the influence of trustworthiness on Team Performance in Non-Governmental Agricultural Organizations in Kenya? and finally, how does Ethical Climate moderate the relationship between servant leadership and Team Performance in Non-Governmental Agricultural Organizations in Kenya?
This study adopted pragmatism philosophy and a convergent mixed-method research design with target population comprising of all 792 employees in the Agricultural based NGOs. Stratified random sampling was applied to select 266 respondents for the quantitative data, while 33 respondents were selected purposively for qualitative data. The study used questionnaires for data collection as the main tool for data collection with additional data collected using key informant interview. Following the approval of the proposal by the School, the draft was submitted to the Institutional Review Board for ethical review followed by the application of the research permit. Upon been granted the research permit, piloting was conducted on 27 respondents who were part of the target population but not included in the selected sample to ascertain the reliability and validity of the research instruments. Quantitative data analysis involved descriptive analysis and inferential analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, while mean and standard deviation constituting descriptive analysis and finally, inferential analysis involved statistical tests and regression analysis. Additionally, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted to test the hypotheses, while qualitative analysis was subjected to VIVO analysis aimed at triangulated results with those obtained from the quantitative analyses.
Findings on the influence of knowledge exchange in terms of feedback, attitude, dissemination of information and interaction accounts for 26% of variations on team performance in Agricultural NGOs with ANOVA result showing that knowledge exchange had a statistically significant influence on team performance {F (1,209) = 74.97, p<.05)}, implying that knowledge exchange significantly influences team performance in NGOs in the agricultural sector. Regarding emotional exchange, results showed that gratitude, empathy, respect and assertive as respective constructs accounted for for 29.2% of team performance in Agricultural NGOs. ANOVA results show that emotional exchange had a significant influence on team performance {F (1,209) =86.379, p<.05)}. Similarly, human resources exchange in terms attention, delegation and mentorship accounted for 21.5% of team performance in Agricultural NGOs, with ANOVA results showing that human resources had a statistically significant influence on team performance that human resource exchange positively predicts team performance{ (F (1,209) =57.237, p<.05)}. Additionally, the results revealed that trustworthiness in terms of integrity, consistency, loyalty accounted for 27.5% of team performance in Agricultural NGOs and the influence was statistically significant {(F (1,209) =79.272, p<.05)}. The results also showed that organizational culture and individual differences as components of ethical climate significantly moderates the relationship between servant leadership and team performance in the NGOs.
Based on the findings various inferences were made. One, servant leaders have dynamic characteristics, qualities and competence, which can be harnessed to improve team performance two, developing cooperative, balanced human exchanges fosters strong in-group and out-group relationships that benefit the team through increased cohesion, collaboration and job satisfaction. Three, organization’s trustworthiness culture effectively guided employees to maintain higher cooperation, collaboration and coherence is important given its significance at work. In terms of recommendations, the study recommends promoting knowledge-exchange intentions among employees in the NGOs to improve their capacity and competence in acquiring new skills and capabilities, which enable NGO employees to adapt to external changes. The NGOs are encouraged to combine compassionate leadership with servant leadership to provide a holistic approach towards workforce management, considering individual differences. Further, strengthening of internal communication channels aimed at cultivating effectiveness in information sharing and improvements in team collaboration is necessary. High levels of trustworthiness is encouraged in agricultural NGOs to improve transparency and accountability in tasks based on cross-culture perceptions about trust.