Applicability of prescribed leadership pillars for middle managers in the energy sector

Abstract: This study was conducted within the energy sector where there has been a substantial decline in investor and public confidence. The purpose of the research was to explore the applicability of the prescribed leadership pillars by middle managers within the energy sector. This sector grew by $1.4 billion in 2009 to reach $5 billion with electricity being the biggest generation dominator. However, there has been a decline in performance and profit levels as the organisation’s credit rating was downgraded because of allegation of corruption, money laundering, ill-discipline and incompetence of some of its leaders. The lack of understanding of the importance of the prescribed leadership pillars seemed to have created a gap. The organisation’s failure to recognise the pillars of servant leadership, good governance, lack of disciplined execution, and non-responsive learning organisation has created performance and reputational challenges. A qualitative research approach was used to gain an understanding on the enquiry that explored this socio-economic problem. Purposeful sampling was used as a deliberate method where the researcher used subjective judgement to select the participants for the research. The sample size was fifteen middle managers. Creswell (2014) six (6) stages of data analysis were used to analyse data from the interviews and five (5) main themes and eighteen sub themes emerged. The main theme was the expected behaviour of the leader and the story that the findings are telling is that the inappropriate leadership behaviours affect good governance which intern affect the effectiveness of work teams who then fail to execute their duties. Furthermore the findings explore failure to implement disciplined execution which makes the organisation non-responsive to learning. Based on the study findings it is recommended to revisit and re-align the pillars, servant leadership, leadership that creates learning organisation, good governance and discipline execution accordingly so that the expected leadership behaviours are lived and understood by all employees.M.Phil