SOURCE:

Faculty: Education
Department: Library And Information Science

CONTRIBUTORS:

Udeze, N. S;
Nwosu, O;

ABSTRACT:

Information is indispensable for attainment of personal and organizational goals. Staff other than librarians in the public libraries in South-East and South-South Nigeria are crucial for providing information in the library. Efficient information service could rest on their job involvement and perceived leadership styles of librarians. The study, therefore investigated the relationship between leadership styles of librarians and job involvement of library staff in public libraries in South-East and South-South Nigeria. The study adopted the correlational research design. The independent variables of leadership styles (autocratic, bureaucratic and transformational) of librarians were correlated with the dependent variable of job involvement of library staff. All library staff in 102 public libraries totaling 437 were used for the study. Validated structured questionnaire on perceived leadership styles with reliability coefficient of 0.67, 0.73, 0.74 and 0.77 for autocratic, transformational, bureaucratic and job involvement respectively were used to collect data for the study. A total of 311 copies of the questionnaire representing 71% were duly completed and returned. Data collected were analysed using percentages and Pearson coefficient. Eleven research questions were answered and 10 hypotheses were tested at 0. 05 level of significance. There was a significant positive relationship between perceived transformational leadership style and job involvement. The negative relationship between perceived autocratic leadership style and job involvement was not significant. The negative relationship between perceived bureaucratic leadership style and job involvement was significant. In addition, the relationship between perceived leadership styles of librarians and job involvement on male and female were the same. Regression analysis showed that library staff perceived autocratic, bureaucratic and transformational leadership styles of librarians predict their job involvement. The study concluded that librarians’ use of transformational leadership style might increase the job involvement of library staff, while bureaucratic and autocratic leadership styles might decrease the job involvement of other library staff. It is therefore, recommended that librarians should apply leadership styles that would increase job involvement of their staff.