INTRODUCTION
Leadership is an important aspect of managing: the ability to lead effectively is one of the keys to being an effective leader.
It has been observed that whenever there is an organization a need for administration must exist.
Leadership is therefore very essential in an organization. This is why leadership is emphasized in transport organization. The success of an organization depends largely upon the way and manner in which the leader or manager operates within the organization.
Therefore in order to be successful, a leader should, among other things, adopt a particular leadership style at a given time, that could help in achieving the aim and objective of the organization.
Generally, leadership is very difficult either in terms of qualities or in terms of what the manager or leader does or in term of attributes (Gary, 1989) part of the difficult arises from the complexity of human nature itself. The way one person perceives a good person might be quite different from that of others.
However, what is very interesting in leadership is that, if one sees a leader, he/she can easily be recognized. Relationship between transport owner’s leadership styles and employees’ leader, he/she can easily be recognized. Relationship between transport owner’s leadership styles and employees’ effective employee can be easily rendered in effective if the owner’s leadership styles is in conflict with the task role of the employee. On the other hand, an employee who is not effective can easily made effective if the owner (boss) is appropriate.
Wrong investment decision is not the only major reason why most organizations be it public or private has not been very successful.
Lack of good leader has been identified as one of the roots cause of organization failure in recent times particularly in the public sector.
Poor leadership is the major contributory factor to lower productivity in some organization. Every organization has its own objectives and to attain the set objectives, there must be a good leader to help the organization in order to achieve its objectives.
Performance of any organization is not only measured in terms of the attainment of it goal. The success of any establishment depend on the ability of those who manage.
MEANING LEADERSHIP
Leadership administration and management were used interchangeably. But with greater development in behavioural science studies, the concept is becoming increasingly limited to a particular aspect of interpersonal influence in organization. In addition, due to the importance of the leadership role in organization different scholars have applied the concept in different contexts.
The major trend that has reneged in recent attempts to conceptualize leadership as a social process rather than purely as an attribute, the initial conflict or disagreement between the two different schools of though on the conceptions of leadership tends to be dying down. These to concepts of traditional (psychological) to the modern (socio behavioural) Greene, 1975. Adesina 1981.
In describing the leadership based on socio-psychological consideration Barnard (1938) as cited by Omosidi (1998) established.
The democratic process depends upon leaders strong enough to maintain their ambition under its perplexities patient to endure it restraint, proud to be foremost among to seek sources about the illusion of power and the futilities of frame, willing to be briefly spent in the long span of marching events.
Adesina (1981) defines leadership as the ability to get things done through the assistance and/or co-operation of other people within the institution and or organization system. By this definition, it is expected of transport owner to relate well within staff to get things done for accomplishment of organizational goals.
Tawari (1986) opined that leadership is a person who is willing, indeed eager to accept publicly the challenge of filling the owner role in the organizational drama, even through some ritualistic denial of seeking greatness in nomination is required.
Edem (1982) also perceived leadership as the ability to initiate action, motivate and direct others towards the fulfillment of a common goals. The transport owner, in the achievement of goal and objective of his business must be ready to initiate various actions, induce his staff to work and motivate them so that performance of their job.