Decision-Making Skills as a Framework for Good Governance among Political Administrators in Ibadan Metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria
Good governance is freedom, liberty, access to life and a sense of fulfillment in a place where one is a citizen. This study investigated the leadership styles and decision-making skills as determinants of good governance in the Ibadan metropolis. Previous researchers had examined the problem of bad leadership at various levels of public administrations or governmental establishments to find enduring solutions to leadership crisis but much work has not been done in respect of leadership styles and decision-making skills as determinants of good governance in the Ibadan metropolis. The descriptive research design was adopted, multi-stage, purposive and simple random techniques were used to select the respondents. The total retrieved questionnaire was 804 (93.7% of 858 sampled). A self-designed questionnaire that yielded a reliability coefficient of r = 0.81 was used for data collection. Five research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The findings of the study revealed that the state of governance among political administrators is on an average level as viewed by community members, local government staff and ward councilors (mean = 1.89, 1.78 and 1.71) respectively. Also, community members’ opinions about the prevalent leadership style adopted by political administrators were Laissez-faire (mean = 2.02), local government staff and councilors’ opinions were autocratic (mean =2.16 and 2.12) respectively. Community members’ opinion about the prevalent leadership decision-making skills adopted by political administrators was consultative (mean =2.09), local government staff and councilors’ opinions were non-participative (mean =2.16 and 2.06) respectively. It was revealed that leadership styles and decision-making skills indices have combined significant influence on good governance (R2 = 0.199, F(6, 602) = 24.994; p<0.05). It is recommended that the democratic leadership style and participatory decision making should be adopted by the political administrators. Furthermore, it was recommended that there should be a gender balance among the political administrators.
Keywords: Leadership Styles, Decision-making, Political Administrators, Good Governance
