Leadership quality and organisational performance
Date
2016
Authors
Phuthi, Rebaone Daniel Doctor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Abstract
Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries(DAFF ) is constitutionally carrying the
mandate of coordinating food security interventions in South Africa, hence food security
and poverty alleviation are amongst top priorities which DAFF as a national department
is relying on provincial departments of agriculture for efficient implementation of plans
and programmes in order to respond to these, this therefore make agriculture portion of
DAFF mandate transversal in nature because of its concurrent relationship between
DAFF and Provincial departments of Agriculture. Department DAFF often gets
confronted with series of questions from different stakeholders all expressing
dissatisfaction by the department’s inability to follow money and fully account for the
effective utilisation of funds by the provincial departments of Agriculture. The Portfolio
committee members and the Auditor General’s findings for a number of years all cited
insufficient monitoring and oversight of supported projects as a serious problematic area
for the department, hence a qualified audits for predetermined objectives for the past
three years has been received.
The directorate Organisation Performance (D:OP) in DAFF focuses on monitoring
strategic objectives of DAFF at national level through tracking performance against
Strategic Plan/Annual Performance Plan and Service catalogue which reflect services
offered by national directorates in order to achieve constitutional mandates. It is in
directorate Organisation Performance where there are Monitoring and Evaluation
Specialists at a deputy director level attached to every branch for focused and dedicated
M&E support and these officials are very key for effective organisation performance.
Though the paper primary intention is to focus on quality of leadership in DAFF and its
relationship with organisation performance, the mediating role of monitoring and
evaluation function serve as a glue that enhance decision making because top
management rely on reliable and accurate information to be provided by directorate
organisation performance and this is also in line with National Treasury Framework for
Managing Programme Performance Information (2007) requirements. This therefore
make monitoring and evaluation very important as well to be considered in evaluating the
influence of leadership quality on organizational performance.
One of the key findings is that though there is positive relationship between leadership quality and organisational performance within DAFF, the relationship is not as strong as in the relationship between monitoring and evaluation effectiveness and organisational performance. It is therefore recommended that with more focused investment in supporting the function of monitoring and evaluation, good organisational performance will be realised even if the quality of leadership is not that strong.
Description
MM Thesis
Keywords
Leadership, Organizational effectiveness -- South Africa.