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NIGERIAN BANKS: ANALYSING LEADERSHIP STYLES AND COMPANY PERFORMANCE)

NIGERIAN BANKS: ANALYSING LEADERSHIP STYLES AND COMPANY PERFORMANCE)
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Contents
1. INTRODUCTION 3
1.1. Background Information 3
1.2. Nigerian banking sector 4
1.3. Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) 7
1.4. Problem Statement 8
1.5. Aim 9
1.6. Research Questions 10
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 10
2.1. Introduction 10
2.2. GTB’s Shortfalls and their underlying cause. 11
2.3. Leadership style/theories utilized by GTB’s leadership and theireffects on its health? 14
2.4. GTB’s leadership style and performance 16
2.5. GTB’s, Zenith Bank and the First bank? 18
2.6. GTB’s leadership and other factors (internal and external factors) 19
2.7. Conclusion 21
3. METHODOLOGY 22
4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 24
4.1. GTB’s shortfalls 26
4.2. GTB’s Leadership Style and its Performance 29
4.3. GTB, Zenith Bank and the First bank 30
4.4. GTB’S Leadership and Other Factors (Workers -Employer Relationship, Organization Policy, Competition, and Political Environment) 32
5. CONCLUSION 35

Analyzing Leadership Styles and Company Performance of Nigerian Banks
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background Information
Leadership can be described as the aptitude of a leader to make the best decisions in every situation and influence his/her followers to follow them well (Osborne 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). A leader can be a person who is either given the responsibility of has volunteered to make decisions for a group or a team (Osborne). A leader in a business setting can be a team leader, a supervisor, a manager the entrepreneur (Adelegan 2009). A good leader is the one who is able to make decisions that enables his/her team to take advantage of all situations and survive through adverse occurrences. Business environments are continuously becoming increasingly competitive as many countries liberalize their economies. Regional integration is also another factor that increasing competition among businesses (Vaasan ammattikorkeakoulu & Balogun, Ibrahim Ola 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer).
Business leaders are also required to set targets that are attainable. They are also required to design and assign actions that need to be done so that the set goals can be achieved. They are also required to inspire resilience among their workers when business is facing challenges such as competition, reduction in demand or unfavorable legal-political environment. Leaders are also tasked with the responsibility of premeditating the risk factor involved in the business operation and decide whether a proposed undertaking is worthwhile (Babalola & Omobowale 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). Actions that leaders judged to be very risky are abandoned.
Business leaders also manage business employees. A significant part of inspiring employees to achieve business targets involve communication (In Zoeteman 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). Leaders should be effective communicators with ability to influence. A leader who is able to inspire self confidence among his/her employees achieves more. Additionally, he/she should learn the strengths and weaknesses of his/her workers. A good leader assists a firm to achieve more when all other factors are optimized. A business that lacks good leadership at various levels may not realize its potential. Among other factors, an organizations performance relates with the quality of the leadership among other factors. For instance, it is business leaders (team leaders, supervisors or managers) arrange all the internal factors of production in a working relationship such that products and be made and sold such that the firm can make profit. Internal factors that firms need to regulate include employees, raw materials and capital among others. On the other hand, there are other factors that a firm’s leadership may not be able to regulate and has to align its internal factors to survive. Such include legal-political environment, environmental factors and competition among others. For instance, a firms management cannot influence the fiscal management actions taken by the government but must adjust its operations to survive. A bank for instance has to adhere strictly to capitalization and recapitalization requirements set by the regulator, mostly the central bank. Additionally banks also have to vary their interest rates in line with central bank’s lending rates in order to survive and remain profitable: this is also the case for competition and other external factors. As said earlier, a firm’s leadership has a great potential to regulate its internal environment and align to the external factors (that the firm has no control over) to ensure its success. (Vaasan ammattikorkeakoulu & Balogun, Ibrahim Ola 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer). For this reason a firm success or failure is to a huge extent linked to its leadership.
1.2. Nigerian banking sector
Nigerian banking sector is among the largest on the entire African continent, with several of Nigerian banks making it to the 1000 greatest banks globally (IMF 2013). The largest banks in this economy are the Zenith Bank, the First Bank and the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB). Despite this institution being close in size, each of the institutions has its unique business and management model and history. For instance, the First Bank is the oldest banking institution in the country having begun its operations in 1894. On the other hand, the Zenith bank emerged the top in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service in terms of capital while GTB was continuously ranked the best in customer relations in the 2000s and early 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writers before being dethroned by Zenith bank in 2013 (IMF 2013). However, GTB was afterwards seen to aggressively exploit internet banking platform to enhance its performance. Each of these banks has a unique leadership style that is influenced by their environment, the leaders among other factors. As seen earlier, the series of choices made by the firm’s leadership leads to consequences, which can either be desirable or undesirable.
Leadership styles adopted by some banks have over time been detrimental to these institutions. Some of them have enabled managers and other bank leaders to engage in activities such as tribalism and nepotism in hiring process, reduced accountability by some of these leaders as well as denied the majority of employees to effectively participate in their operations. Over the time, statutory bodies that are charged with the responsibility of regulating banks may lack power to regulate the process of hiring or banks leadership. These bodies including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) preferentially regulate other issues such as recapitalization, which is deemed as being necessary in safeguarding public money. In 2002, the Nigerian central introduced a regulation requiring all banks to recapitalize to attain a capitation of NGN25 billion which lead to mergers and acquisitions and reduction of the number of banks to around 25% of the previous figure (Elkanah, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Firms are left to a significant extent to select the leaders they want and the form of leadership they deem best for their needs. Ineffective leadership that each of these institutions may choose to adopt becomes detrimental to their performance in terms of responsiveness, competitiveness and survivability. Therefore, banks need to utilize the best leadership as it is important for firms overall survival. Due to the importance that leadership has on businesses, researchers have widely studied the effects of leadership within organizations globally. A number of theories have been evolved that deals with the different leadership styles and their effects on businesses. Some focus on the ethical models and leadership style among others. Job satisfaction regarding employees’ perceptions, notion of leadership styles and the communication expertise of bank managers are the core factors that influences firms success in firms (Adelegan 2009).
Banks play a major role in economy economies: they provide credit for development as well as manage clients’ savings and operate in a very perilous environment. Since it is part of the service domain, efficient risk management is not achievable without efficient and skilled manpower as well as leadership. Therefore, two of the main factors challenging banks are managing people and managing risk. Effective management of these factors leads to success in the banking industry. Soft skills have been identified as an important element for better execution of tasks. These involve more than operational skills which are needed to fulfill the needs of the customers, a blend of new technologies, quicker credit and risk appraisal, diversification of products, managing treasury and human resource based on priority would propel banks and the entire industry in any country (Babalola & Omobowale 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). This could also cause similar results in Nigeria.
Various theories have been put forth to explain the origin and characteristics of different leadership styles. These styles are applicable in all types of organizations but the use of each has advantages and shortfalls. Business leaders and managers should choose the ones that suit their organizations at each particular time, based on the desired results on firm’s condition. It is hence important to take a look at the different leadership styles and a preview of their advantages and shortfalls (Olotu & Olopete 2011).
Firm’s performance is to a great extent indicative of the type and the efficacy of the leadership put in place. A series of missteps in production, marketing, product promotion, customer relations or others of firms operation can be a sign of poor leadership. This is also the case if the firm is not able to operate within statutory laws. This may mean that the leadership is not able to formulate the right organizational goals or is not able to inspire or influence its employees to follow them. GTB bank has in the recent years been seen to have exhibited organizational missteps that are indicative of unhealthy leadership.
1.3. Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB)
Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank/GTB) is a Nigerian based international bank that offers services such as Corporate, investment, retail and internet banking as well as asset management. The bank is headquartered in the Victoria Island in the city of Lagos, Nigeria (Maklan, Stan, Knox, Simon & Michel, Stefan 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer). The firm was amalgamated as a limited liability company (LLC) in 1990 and was licensed to offer banking services to the members of the public in the same year but would begin its operations in the following year. The company’s stock was first traded by the public in 1996, and later worn a presidential merit award. The bank acquired its universal banking license in 2002 and was made a settlement bank by the financial regulator (CBN) a year later (Offor, 2013). GTB participated in a second stock offering in year 2004 and managed to raise NGN11 billion locally, this amount was used for the firm’s expansion (Michael 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
Another milestone for this institution came in 2007 when it successfully listed its stock in the London Stock Exchange (LSE) becoming the First Bank in the sub-Saharan Africa to achieve this. This was done concurrently with its listing in Deutsche Borse: this joint IPO generated US$750 million. GTB proceeded to place a USD500 million Eurobond that was also successfulbn (Michael 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). In the international market, the bank’s long-term debt is rated AA- according to Fitch Ratings and BB- according to Standard & Poor. The bank is also credited with having introduced mobile banking through SMS and online platforms in Nigeria (Agboola, Yinusa & Ologunde 2009). By the close of 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, the firm had 217 branches in countries such as the UK, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Rwanda among others. It also had close to 1150 ATMs in the home country.
Despite its success, the firm has also been on the limelight for the negative reasons, for instance in mid-2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, it was sued by Innoson Nigeria for overcharging it to a tune of N560, a court battle it lost and required to paid the amount and interests. The financial conduct Authority (FCA) in UK fined GTB STG pounds 525 for failing to implement requisite controls to bar money laundering between 2008 – Affordable Custom Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay from Pro Writers and 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer (Great Britain & Stationery Office (Great Britain) 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). KPMG Nigeria also found out that the firm had been dethroned as the bank with the most customer friendly services. GTB lost this position to Zenith bank in 2013 and has not been able to recapture it. Recently, the bank introduced a service where disgruntled clients could directly call the top management especially after instances of clients receiving unsatisfactory customer services. These among other instances show that the bank has leadership issues that need to be looked into so that corrective measures can be formulated and implemented to make the competitive. This will also be important to align the firm with the legal political environment to avoid instances where money is lost through fines.
1.4. Problem Statement
The success story of GTB is well studied and may documents have been compiled about it. However, its shortfalls and the underlying issues remain to be studied. The firm has been seen to be in a position where the leadership is either unable to make sound goals or policies or is unable to inspire or influence its workers to follow sound policies. This is seen particularly in the issues described above where the firm is no longer the top in offering friendly customer service. The firm has also lost in legal battles and regulatory agencies which are undesirable as this money could be used to better customer services or to develop a better product or a market mix. GTBs leadership issues need to be studied and their outcomes such that sustainable solutions can be developed. This papers hypothesis will be ‘GTB’s leadership style directly affects its performance’.
1.5. Aim
Leadership is a crucial component of firms’ /banks’ productivity as it does not only affects managers’ productivity but workers’ and those of all other factors. To aid in conceptualization of leadership as an academic and a professional area, leadership styles and theories have been developed. This has also been done to direct further research and help predict outcomes, where applicable. This research inquiry is aimed at having an exhaustive look into the leadership utilized in unhealthy leadership in GTB Nigeria. The specific bank that will be looked into is the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), which was among the largest banks in this Nigeria in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service. Several leadership models/theories will be utilized to assess the link between leadership styles and GTB’s organization’s performance. The paper will also look into the relationship between leadership styles and other aspects (workers –employer relationship, organization policy, competition, and political environment); including how these factors influence the organization’s performance.
1.6. Research Questions
1. What are the various issues/missteps GTB has had, what are their causes?
2. What is the leadership style/utilized by GTB’s leader, how does it affect its health?
3. What is the relationship between GTB’s leadership style and its performance?
4. How does GTB’s leadership compare with those of Zenith Bank and First bank?
5. What is the relationship between GTB’s leadership and other factors (workers -employer relationship, organization policy, competition, and political environment)?
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
Leadership is a very crucial component of as seen in the introduction section as it directly influences the productivity of factors in a business. Even when land, capital and labor are optimized, a firm needs to optimize leadership to arrange these factors in a working relationship and align a firm’s production to external environment (In Zoeteman 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). External factors such as fiscal controls and other aspects of legal political and economic regulation by the government are beyond a firm’s control, meaning that a firm needs to swiftly and appropriately respond to these factors to survive. This is true for firms in all industry and especially the banking industry, which is closely watched and regulated by the governments due to its importance in the overall economy (In Zoeteman 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap).
Several writers have compiled materials describing the relationship between leadership and other factors of production in Nigeria and other economy. Scholars, professionals and academicians all agree that leadership is both predictive and indicative of firms’ success when all other factors are optimized. It is also the role of firms’ leadership/management to establish the optimum amount of all factors of production. They are also supposed to ensure that the optimum amounts of each of these factors are acquired and that all are arranged in a working relationship. This section will look and review materials that have been compiled and published and that have information that regards the leadership in the Nigerian Banking industry and especially the GTB. The review of these materials will be done according to the research questions where materials with information regarding GTB’s shortfalls in the leadership will be reviewed. The review will also look into the underlying courses of these leadership issues using leadership theories and styles. This review will also look into the results of the banks leadership shortfalls as well as asses the link between the banks and performance. The review will also compare its (GTB) leadership and performance to Zenith bank and the First Bank, noting that the three banks are the largest in Nigeria. The review will also look and GTB’s leadership relates to other factors such as workers -employer relationship, organization policy, competition, and political environment.
2.2. GTB’s issues/missteps and their underlying cause.
GTB experience the greatest growth between in customer base between 2000 and 2009, which was occasioned by among others friendly and responsive customer services (Makanjuola 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). According to this author, this was further boosted in a great way when CBN placed five mid-tier banks under receivership and announced them insolvent (Offor 2013). As a result, there was mass exodus in which customers moved to the first-tier banks that were seen as being stable. As a result, large banks in this economy including the Zenith bank, the First Bank and GTB would experience unprecedented increase in subscribers. The author notes that this signaled the onset of a period in which GTB did not need to actively compete for customer. The institution has been seen to relax and drift away from offering what the author described as among the best customer care/relations services in the industry. The influx of new applicants for new accounts was high for several years following 2009.
Between 2013 and 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, the GTB has shown relaxed customer relations which has led to many lapses in the care delivered. Some of the shortfalls in the services delivered include delays processing customer requests, in which some customers could wait for up to six months to have their ATM cards processed. In other instances, services to customers have been halted in the working hours where staff members have embarked on activities such as taking group photos among others (Makanjuola 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). In other instances, customers ATM cards have been sent to wrong branches for collection, including some having been wrongfully shipped overseas but belonged to local customers. There has also been an instance in which tellers and bank representatives have practically yelled at their clients or made them to shout their details which is generally not a good practice in a banking hall (Makanjuola 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The management has either lost control of their staffs or do not care much about the quality of services delivered altogether.
GTB has also have had a court battle for overcharging its former client, Innoson Nigeria limited (Chimaâ 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The company in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service sued the bank for an overcharge that amounted to NGN560 that GTB imposed on this company. The company sued GTB to pay this amount and all the accrued interests. Despite the fact that Innoson had taken credit facility amounting to NGN 2.5 from GTB, the bank miss-interpreted the contract which lead to overcharge on innosons side that amounted to NGN560: Innosons team stated that this overcharge was not applicable to them as their only operated a current account with this financial institution. This misinterpretation of facts could be as a result of either careless incompetent leadership. Since the bank had already placed this charge on their client’s account, there was no option than for plaintiff to move to court. Throughout this tussle, GTB’s leadership or the legal team did not realize that the bank stood to lose in terms of finance and its image (Chimaâ 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The federal High court in the state of Anambra state passed a judgment in which GTB would pay Innosons over NGN 4.7 billion. The bank further shows poor leadership as well as understanding of legal issues when it decided to take the matter to an appellate court in Enugu only to be charged over NGN5.7 billon and interest that would accrue during payment.
The bank has also had many instances in which the customers with Naira MasterCard accounts have been frozen without prior or with very late notices. This has happened in some instances to clients who have travelled out of the country, which has exposed them to many problems, as some are left without enough money to spend. The process of activating these accounts have been very lengthy, complicated and expensive as these customers are required to call the banks from oversees, which becomes very expensive. In other instances, the process of resolving such issues has been impossible altogether.
In 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK found that GTB had failed to effectively apply regulations to curb money laundering (anti-money laundering or simply AML). This could provide a leeway for illegal money to get into the financial system. The period in which the bank had failed to properly implement AML was between 2008 – Affordable Custom Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay from Pro Writers and 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer. As a result, FCA fined the bank a total of £525,000 (Great Britain & Stationery Office (Great Britain) 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). This is a large sum of money that could have aided the bank in another area. In addition, such occurrences are undesirable and taint a firm’s image in the face of customer’s potential clients and even investors. This shows lack of leadership in which the management is either unwilling or unable to influence its employees to follow banking regulations. It is important for company leaders to come up with polices in which the firm’s action is in line with the legal political environment to avoid many of the instances seen above.
2.3. Leadership style/theories utilized by GTB’s leadership and their effects on its health?
Leadership styles/theories are formulated to ease the process of conceptualizing leadership as well as predict the outcomes of use each (Gberevbie 2011). Leadership theories are also formulated to direct further research: there are several leadership theories/styles according to schools of thoughts. A leadership style is described as a means by which a leader inspires his/her followers to implement his viewpoints in terms of ideas, plans and goals. There are several leadership styles and theories. Gberevbie (2011) observes that each leadership style may coincide with one or several management theories.
According to Gberevbie (2011), authoritarian leadership style denotes a leadership style in which the leader has absolute power and control of the method(s) through which a goal(s) should be reached or a plan should be implemented. Followers have to strictly follow what the leader says. This coincides with the management theory X in which it is assumed that workers have poor attitude towards work, and managers have to ‘make them work’: it also assumes that followers do not know how to achieve leaders’ and also lack intellectual contribution to the process.
Another leadership style is the paternalistic style in which the leader acts as the father figure and takes full care of followers (Daft & Lane 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The leader provides all the realistic needs of the group as well as concerns in return for trust and allegiance. This style requires that followers become completely devoted to the leader and his/her course. No worker is expected to strive to work alone or against the leader or any member of the group. As a result, followers can develop very solid relations. In this style, very low workers’ turnover is experienced and all followers behave like close friends or members of the same family. Workers also seek for personal help from each other and the help is given very sincerely (Daft & Lane 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
A democratic leadership style denotes a system where the leader and the followers exchange views in the process of making decision. In this system, the workers and leaders agree on their goals as well as the process of achieving them. This system allows the best ideas to be utilized as well as inclusivity and participation of all the parties. This has some aspects of management theory Z in that there is some freedom by all parties. It recognizes that all the parties can produce viable ideas. Laissez faire gives the followers total autonomy in utilizing any means they think is feasible in assisting them to attain their organizations goals. It is important to note that the management or the leadership reserves the rights to set organizations’ goals. Laissez faire shares a lot with the management theory Z and recognizes that followers are able to achieve goals set by the organization. However when the followers lack high standards of integrity, a firm may fail to achieve its goals leading to loses and possible collapse. In other instances, some lazy leaders may choose this system so as to avoid giving directions or supervising their employees.
Enofe, Ekpulu, Onobun & Onyeokweni (2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service) suggested that there could have been failure of firm’s leaders to regulate worker’s activities. The author also suggests that some of these workers could be irresponsible and lacking in integrity, which made them unable to perform without close supervision. The firm could have misjudged their employees and their situation leading to selection of unsuitable leadership style and hence undesirable outcomes (Enofe et al 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The author illustrates this fact by referring to a case where GTB initiated a service that allowed disgruntles customers to communicate directly to the banks’ top management (Enofe et al 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Many of the customers had had issues such as being mistreated by banks representatives. In other instances, bank’s staffs had made customers to wait for long time, shouted to or insulted the customers or unnecessarily delayed services. In addition, some of these staff members had shown clear lack of attention to their job by either filling in wrong customer details among others. According to Enofe et al(2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service), in all the instances where these customers talked to the management, their problems were solved almost promptly as a result, the author suggested that the management could have prevented these issues through being proactive; in ensuring that staffs do their jobs well before customer’s complains. Enofe et al (2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service) therefore suggested that the management had allowed a lot of freedom to members of staff, which was in some instances abused leading to poor services to customers. The author farther notes that the only leadership style that can allow such much freedom to employees is Laissez faire. He notes that Laissez fair provides for supervision, for this reason, the leadership could have relaxed in supervising their staff. As the management allows much freedom to their employees, some of them abused their freedom. The leadership style utilized by this this firm has negatively impacted on its health.
2.4. GTB’s leadership style and performance
As Enofe et al (2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service) expounds above, GTB Nigeria utilizes a leadership style close to or similar to Laissez faire -which has many advantages when properly implemented and when workers exercise high standards of integrity. Improper use of this system has led to poor performance, especially as far as customer relations and customer service are concerned (Enofe et al 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). This was also confirmed by KPMG (2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay) in a research that was conducted to assess customer service and customer satisfaction in the Nigerian banking industry.
The rate of increase in customers in the traditional platform reduced since 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap. This is not desirable as it may hamper the institutions growth, and especially in terms of customer base. This is seen in KPMG’s analysis that indicates that the firm has not been able to recapture its leadership position in customer service and customer satisfaction after losing it in in 2013: the firm led in customer relations for many years before this time (KPMG2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). According to the analysis done by KPMG, any bank that wishes to have sustained growth must focus a significant amount of its attention to its customers. It is important to note that any organization acquire its revenue by selling its products; no revenue can be made without successful sales regardless of how superior the products are. Customers appreciate fast services that are delivered in a humane manner that shows concern for them, if this is not done, they can seek for services from other organizations. This means that sales will reduce over time.
GTB’s (Nigeria) leadership style seems to be lacking in some aspects or even absent or non-responsive for others (Enofe et al 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Noncompliance with AML shows lack of clear policy to adhere with industry’s regulation, it can also be linked to greater autonomy allowed to staff members which gives them freedom to either comply with banks regulations or not. In both instances, it suggests lack of leadership in that leaders did not provide leadership about the issue or did not influence their staff to effectively follow them. This is also the case with instance where the institution overcharged its clients, which was followed by bitter legal battles costing the institution many billions. Despite the many advantages associated with laissez faire, any institution needs to come up with ways of ensuring that all departments perform well (Enofe et al 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). It is not enough to set goals and let employees or their teams to figure out how to achieve them or whether or not achieve them.
The GTB bank has in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service won several awards, which means that some departments/areas performed well. As some of the banks tellers and customer care representatives performed poorly, making the bank to trail zenith bank in customer services and customer relations, other departments have developed innovative online banking platforms, which made the institutions to be named the most customer focused bank in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service. In other countries, the institution performed well and was named the best banking group in the continent in customer satisfaction (KPMG 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay).
There is a relationship between GTB Nigeria’s leadership style and its performance. The Laissez faire leadership style has given much autonomy to various departments leading to very heterogeneous performance (KPMG 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). The customer service/customer relation has performed poorly since 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap while the bank has performed well in introduction of online banking services increasing efficiency for online clientele (Oleabhiele & Mitchell & 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
2.5. GTB’s, Zenith Bank and the First bank?
Zenith Bank and the First Bank leadership differs from GTB’s in that its seen as being democratic; the leadership engages with the staffs on how to achieve these firms’ goals but maintains control over how this is achieved (Burns & Costanzo 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). This has an effect of making the leadership more proactive than reactive. Democratic style of leadership has its shortfalls but a good number of them are reduced and mitigated against if the leadership has clear goals and plans in all departments. Zenith bank has a strong leadership tradition in which leaders are promoted from within. This promotion is done for workers and managers who are judged to have grasped the firm’s tradition of influencing workers to follow firm’s leadership (Mhlanga & University of Newcastle upon Tyne 2004). There is consultation in formulation of firm’s leadership policies.
The First Bank has a multilayered leadership structure in which limited consultations occur between various levels (Njoku & Adindu, Nwakwuribe 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). The firm also ensures effective control of staffs by the management. To emphasize on the importance of leadership for this institution, it has partnered with institutions of learning to produce specialists in leadership. It also partners with those institutions to foster innovation at various levels. Views and ideas and workers are absorbed in this bank but in the context of the institutions goals. For this reason, there is sufficient control on workers as they implement the banks overall goal.
2.6. GTB’s leadership and other factors (internal and external factors)
A company’s leadership reflects its evolution and long term interaction between its management and internal and external factors (In Nwankwo & In Ibeh 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). In most cases, a firm’s leadership varies its internal factors to align its operation with the external ones. GTB’s leadership shows relationships between relationship with external factors in environment which include the country’s culture, competition legal and political environment among others. Since GTB cannot control any of the above factors, it varies factors in its internal environment in order to survive and remain profitable. Some of the factors that the leadership regulates include its relationship with the employees, organizations policy among others (Khadijat 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap).
According to Agbabiaka, KJ (2013), GTB has been among the best institution in managing its employees since its inception to around 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer-2011, when this changed for the worse. Initially, the firm’s management was very effective in communicating its dreams, mission and vision to its employees. Additionally, it offered among the most competitive rates for its workers in all levels, which enabled it to attract the best skills and talent in the market. In addition, new graduates were taken through a rigorous training program that lasted between 2-3 months in which beneficial aspects such as teamwork, efficient and effective customer service were taught. The firm also developed a responsive employee’s welfare program. This among other factors increased customer loyalty and reduced employees’ turn over. The management was always present to evaluate workers performance and to offer support whenever needed. As a result, over the same time period, the institution almost always topped other financial institutions in provision of services to customers (Agbabiaka, KJ Jun 15, 2013). The author states that the situation changed when Mr. Tayo Aderinokun who was the GTB’s co-founder and a long time managing director passed on. Afterwards, the firm has been seen to lack a clear employer-employee policy and rigorous training once conducted on new employees is no longer seen. Additionally, teamwork and employees participation in management reduced. Employees are the policy of offering quality services to employees is no longer emphasized while workers working conditions and employee welfare programs are no longer as competitive as they use to be. Employees’ turnover has been on the rise since 2011 and only smaller numbers of those who were taught the previous working culture remains. To compensate for this clear lack or employees’ culture, the current leadership has purported to give employees more autonomy to serve the clients as they wish. It has also changed in its employer-employee policy to the one where employees have to a significant determined how to serve clients, and how to function (Agbabiaka, 2013). The leadership has also reduced its supervisory role. This has reduced the quality of services delivered to clients and has contributed to heterogeneity in performance in various departments as the firms goals are no longer effectively communicated to employees.
In the days when Tayo Aderinokun was the managing director, GTB seemed to have a clear policy towards its customer services, its employees as well as the legal political environment (Agbabiaka, 2013). However, after 2011, the firm seems to lack a clear policy, its policy has been seen to be reactionary, either towards its employees and service delivery as well as the legal-political environment. For instance on May of 2013, GTB irregularly fired over 100 of its employees for reasons as minor as being unable to log into their computers (Agbabiaka 2013). This contrasts sharply with 2000s where the institution had the lowest workers’ turnover. It is also seen to be late in reacting to issues of compliance with AML and others (Agbabiaka, 2013).
GTB leadership’s relations with the competition have varied. In the past, its policy which aimed at providing competitive services to its clients assisted the institution to rapidly expand its customer base and hence remain competitive. Over this time, the firm did not only focus on customer service but also on competitive products. However, this has changed over time, where firm’s emphasis on efficient customer had services declined; however, the firm remains competitive in development of innovative and customer focused products (KPMG 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). For instance, it led in development of online and internet based banking products in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, it was also ranked the most customers focused in development of new products by KPMG (KPMG 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). This means that the firms’ leadership has managed to keep it competitive in some aspects.
2.7. Conclusion
As seen, the GTB had a very effective and responsive leadership since its inception, which made the bank successful. Over this time, institutions products, customer services were competitive while employees training and welfare was responsive which favored preservation of corporate culture and knowledge. However, this changed at some point and even if the firm has remained competitive in some aspects, especially in development of new and innovative products, there has been a shift in leadership. This is seen in the change of the leadership style. However, as the former leadership style has been replaced, there lacks a clear way forward and the management is seen torn between having a laissez faire style or other forms where the top management engage directly with clients to solve problems they face. The firm has been seen to have missteps which may taint its image in the public. As seen in the literature review, some may view this as a failure in leadership. There is a need for the firm to correct and avoid such occurrences and make its performance across all the departments homogeneous.
3. METHODOLOGY
In this section, the data needed to achieve the objectives of this research was obtained. The search for information was accomplished according to type of the present research. Factors such as the validity of information, both the internal and external were considered (Chandra& Sharma 2013). This means that the information sought as well as the time period required became critical. It is important to note that GTB was formerly a successful bank with very few if any leadership problems. A time came and due to various dynamics, the institution has found itself facing challenges in provision of quality services to its clients as well as being compliant with some regulators (such as FCA) as seen in the literature review question. This emphasizes on the need to get the information from the right time period so that the research’s objectives can be achieved. Additionally, to improve on the internal and the external validity of the data obtained for the research, many independent sources were sought to reduce the effects of each writer’s personal opinion. In addition, sources of information from institutions such as the KPMG, the FCA among others are also important in increasing the validity of the information.
The current research inquiry relied majorly on secondary sources of data. Examples of these sources include books, interment resources and articles from individual as well as the institutional authors. The researcher ensured that the materials collected were from the study period and that no outdated sources were sought and utilized. In searching for materials to be used as the sources of data for this research, the researcher utilized the paper’s objective as well as research questions to acquire the materials needed. The researcher looked for materials that effectively responded to the research questions and/or enriched the discourse about the same such that research objectives could be achieved. Research design utilized for this research was literature search, which was important in allowing the researcher to cheaply and conveniently obtain information from many relevant sources. Even if this paper’s main research was about GTB bank, case study design as a method of collecting data could not be utilized as this could restrict the data obtained. This would mean that the data for the main research would be obtained from far fewer sources which would affect its validity. In some instances, due to marketing among other reasons, a firm and sometimes its customers would be unwilling to relay negative information about their firms, which further reduce the chance that data from many sources, giving a better perspective of the situation would be obtained. For this reason, among others, the researcher chose to use a literature search in which many sources, from individual and institutional authors would be utilized.
As said earlier, this paper’s primary research focuses mainly on a period after 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer, when GTB’s leadership is seen to change especially as far as customer services and customer relations are concerned. This is also the time when the firm is seen to have missteps such failing to comply with FCA’s regulation as well as experiencing high employee turnover. It is also a period associated with change of the firm’s top leadership, for this reason, this is a suitable study period. To ensure that the data obtained represents a balanced view of the situation, many sources from individual as well as institutional authors will be utilized.
Materials that have information that answers research questions were selected and analyzed, such that the required information was obtained and analyzed. This was done for all the sources. Data analysis involved selecting the information that responds to the research questions and others that enriched the discourse to further shed light on the subject. The analyses also involved finding out whether this information formed the basis for either accepting or rejecting the research hypothesis. Rejecting this hypothesis would effectively mean that the alternative hypothesis would be adopted.
4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The GTB bank has been a largely successful bank in Nigeria, West Africa as well as the entire continent. Having been established 20 years ago, it has managed is to rise to the top three foremost banks in Nigeria to compete effectively with institutions such as the First Bank that was established over a century ago (Alimi 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). In 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, it managed it was among the few banks from the continent that made it to the list of 1000 largest banks in the world (Agboola, Yinusa & Ologunde 2009). The same bank, along with 8 other Nigerian banks had slots in this list. The other Nigerian banks in the list were the zenith bank and the First Bank. GTB bank was registered as a limited liability company (LLC) in Nigeria in 1990 and began operation in the following year (In Nwankwo & In Ibeh 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). This institution was founded by an entrepreneur named Tayo Aderinokun and his business partner Fola Adeola. In this time, this founder observed that Nigerian banks offered services only to the higher income individuals and the penetration of lower and middle income remained very low (In Das 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The sole reason for this was that many Nigerian banks had no services for this class of people, despite them being the majority in the population. At the same time, Tayo observed that banks and other financial institutions offered very poor customer services to their clients as there were very few alternatives in the markets (Grossman & Parkinson 2002). The founder envisioned an institution in which all the workers would uphold the highest professional and moral code of conduct and provide superior services to customers. GTB also provided products for the middle and the lower income members of the society by making the process of applying accounts easier, lowering the minimum balance on the accounts as well as charging less for services rendered by the bank (Okereke & Agupusi 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
After entry into the market, corporate clients, expatriates and higher income members of the society were attracted by the quality of services offered by the institution and many of them started operating accounts with GTB. Superior customer services and corporate culture enabled the bank to curve a niche in the industry and compete effectively with other institutions. Its identity helped it to grow continuously for the first of its two decades. The first indicator of its rapid growth was listing of its stock in the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) six years into its operations (Corbett 2008 – Affordable Custom Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay from Pro Writers). In the same year, the bank won the NSE presidential merit award. It was approved to operate globally after it received a universal banking license in 2002, later on, the CBN appointed it as settlement bank in 2003 (Alimi 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
For the first 20 years, GTB had a very strong corporate culture and customer service. For the first decade of its operations, Tayo and Fola (its co-founders) personally trained all managers sharing with them the Banks vision, and how to differentiate its service with superior customer service and corporate culture. In these training sessions, employees, mangers and cofounders formed strong working teams that could liaise in decision making and implementation. Each of the employees carried the firm’s vision. When workers were released to work, the institution has a strong and efficient workers support structure that ensured that workers did not only receive the organizations goals but they implemented them and received help and feedback at each step (Lemo 2003).
To support its stance on ethical issues, the bank in many times refused to transact with or even serve unethical clients, despite that there were generally no laws to govern this. This is also despite the fact that these clients would directly lead to financial gains for the institution. Among the unethical practices that the bank vehemently condemned and alienated was the then corrupt public sector such that for nearly a decade into its operations, it refused to set up a public sector unit (Belasen & Toma 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Although this initially stifled its performance, the institution would later get many likeminded clients and grew rapidly: this was also beneficial for brand identity.
By 2005, GTB had become one of the largest bank in Nigeria and the region and had effectively caught up with the First Bank that had operated in the market for a century. It had also become the most respected and recognized institution as far as ethical corporate culture was concerned. It was also respected for leading in innovation and professionalism and was the utmost best in customer service (Millar Poole & Palgrave Connect 2011). It had also become very successful in financial performance and effectively rolled out many of retail focused services.
After 2002, all the first tier banks experience unprecedented increase of clients due to near collapse of the middle tier banks in 2002 (Elkanah 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Additionally, Nigerian is a fast developing economy such that the middle class is rapidly expanding and some members of the middle class are growing into financial high-class (Corral, Molini, Oseni & World Bank, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). For these reasons, banks and other financial institutions that served the middle and the lower class have effectively expanded and so has the GTB. The digital revolution and the mobile and online banking services have given many opportunities for the GTB bank and other institutions to continue expanding through production of new products (Akinbowale 2013). Additionally, with the increase with the people’s disposable incomes, banks, and GTB in particular will increase their transactions. With time, clients’ savings and bank transactions increased. More of the institutions clients were able to conduct international transactions and other services that fueled and continue to fuel the growth of Nigerians financial sector (Osaze 2011).
4.1. GTB’s shortfalls
2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer became a very important year for GTB as an institution. This firm had grown to be the leading bank in Nigeria in terms of profitability, customer service and innovation. This year also brought a wave of new changes offering opportunities for innovation. These changes included the development of digital and online platforms as well as expansion of network coverage to rural towns and inner cities throughout Nigeria. On the Nigerian economic front, the country’s economy way reaping the benefits of skyrocketing of the per barrel price of oil that had occurred in 2001, which approached $150. It is important to note that Nigeria is among the leading oil producers in the continent (Calì & World Bank Group, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
On the GTB’s side, Tayo Aderinokun’s, health was failing and Fola Adeola was opting out of management post. Tayo was the firm’s managing director at this time, and had been the entrepreneur who recognized gaps in services that were being given by the Nigerian banks. He also credited with having developed a strong and responsive corporate culture that exemplified provision of efficient customer services to customers. Fola was another leader who helped develop efficient leadership that made GTB what it was. With the departure of these two leaders, the firm’s leadership style changed. There was reorganization occasioned by the entry of new leadership, some of who had different visions of how GTB could be. They too had had different ways of implementing their leadership style for some time which conflicted with the earlier setup (Obadare & Adebanwi 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). This new form of leadership is seen is seen to have reduced the important of developing strong partnership between the leadership and the employees. Employees training have effectively reduced the importance of superior customer service has been reduced, which may make GTB to lose the competitive advantage it had. Additionally, strong emphasis on ethics no longer exists and sharing of vision between the top management and employees at the lower levels has reduced. Each department is largely detached from the firms overall vision and there is less control from the top management. This has loosely degenerated to a form laissez leadership style. This can be seen by the fact that the firm has been performing poorly in its former strong areas, such as customer care and customer service.
In what was seen as a crash between new and old leadership, the firm sacked 100 employers in the year 2013. This was followed by sacking of over 20 mid-level managers in what was the highest employee turnover seen by this firm. The sacking is seen again in the case where the firm’s employee was asked to present his resignation letter to the institution. This employee named Emmanuel Koroma (a lawyer) was accused by then MD of doing little in recovering the banks money from defaulters. The lawyer stated that recovery of banks money had to be done in accordance with the Nigerian law, which angered the MD who asked the lawyer to tender his resignation latter. This led to bitter court battles, but the two parties decided to settle this disagreement out of courts.
Although firms’ management reserves the right to sack employees, there should be a legally justifiable reason (Kigho-Oyolo 2009). Additionally, the management in question must evaluate the cost and the benefits of conducting their actions. GTB has the highest cost to profit ratio in the entire banking sector in the country. The firm also remains largely profitable. For this reason, systematic firing of employees could be detrimental as it could lead to loss of corporate knowledge. It is important to note that GTB’s success as in any other firm is partly attributable to its employees and its corporate Knowledge. Sacking these people does not only lead to lose of their knowledge but increases the increases the chance that this knowledge could fall into the hands of competitors, which would erode the firms competitive advantage. The lawyer in the above case tells the management that the firm’s dept collection must be done within the law. It is important for a firm’s leadership to ensure that all s decisions are lawful as every firm operates within a legal environment. Failure to do this may lead to losses for the firm through lawsuits.
GTB has also had instances in which customers’ accounts have been frozen, especially for Naira MasterCard accounts without prior notice (Global Village Extra 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Although the freezing could have been informed by the market forces, the firm has the responsibility of informing its clients of such events as well as providing alternatives or means of coping, whenever necessary. In early 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, the firm faced a lawsuit over its freezing of clients’ accounts. This suit amounted to about NGN30 billion for freezing naira accounts belonging to several corporate clients. The amount sought in this suit was for the damages suffered by the plaintiffs by the GTBs action of obtaining court injunctions to freeze accounts in over a dozen banks. Among the complainants were the Innosons institution mentioned earlier. In this court case, GTB ended up losing in these court battles and settling the claims, which means that the institution lost money in addition to tarnishing its name (Global Village Extra 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
In other instances, GTB has frozen accounts of students and other people without prior warning. This group could not possibly press charges due to banks financial muscle. Some of them tried using other means such as calling the management or the customer care but this did not lead to any speedy resolution of dispute. Calling this bank was expensive, especially for clients who were abroad. In other instances, the persons whose accounts had been frozen were required to liaise with people in Nigeria to call the customer care but this too led to very slow process of resolution of their complains (Global Village Extra 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). This put student and small scale international traders at a bad position.
4.2. GTB’s Leadership Style and its Performance
The leadership style in GTB is seen as some form of laissez faire characterized by either loses control or lack thereof to teams and departments. For this reason, it has performed poorly areas that gave this firm an identity, enabling it to curve a niche in a competitive market. At the same time, the firm has performed exemplary well in developing market oriented innovations in the area of internet and online banking (John 2011). At the same time, the firm has continued to be profitable and maintain a low cost to profit ration. However, despite this performance, the firms overall growth remains threatened if it does not rectify its customer services. Despite the firm’s leadership in development of online and mobile based banking services, the Zenith bank and the First Bank are easily catching up. KPMG notes that the Zenith bank has been the overall leader in customer service since 2013. This firm is also currently the largest in Nigeria in the first tier category (Elkanah, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service), with superior customer service; this firm may in the medium run outdo GTB in customer base. In classic business understanding, a large customer base leads to higher profitability as it means more sales (Nili & Keramati 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). Still, it’s not safe for GTB to lose its corporate identity, by relinquishing what it was initially known for. GTB’s leadership style has led to heterogeneous performance across various departments as well as loss of its corporate image, after it ceased being the best bank in customer service (Okoro 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer).
4.3. GTB, Zenith Bank and the First bank
In Zenith Bank and the First Bank, the leadership style in these organizations is seen as being democratic. These organizations have multilayered organization structure that facilitate upward and downward movement of information. Workers are significantly engaged in the decision making process but the leadership comes up with ways of implementing leadership decisions (Mhlanga & University of Newcastle upon Tyne 2004). Additionally, the leadership retains strong supervisory role to ensure that implementation is done effectively and in the desired way. In some instances, this may hinder innovation in implementation of decision or in the achievement of organizations goals. For instance, Zenith, which is the largest bank in the economy, implementation of digital platforms has been slow and was overtaken by the GTB. This is because of the autonomy allowed to departments in GTB to come up with innovation. On the other hand the institution’s leadership has now set to develop and effectively launch digital platform for all of its clients. This is set to create a strong synergistic effect with is leadership in provision of quality customer services. The banks current CEO Peter Amangbo is seen as a person who believes in testing products before they are effectively rolled out to all consumers. The bank first rolled out its mobile phone based up in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service as a pilot project and was convinced that it was applicable when the application registered over 7 million uses (Burns & Costanzo 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The bank officially launched the application for use later one. In other instance, Zenith bank rolled a corporate internet based service which was far superior to any other in the market, through enabling users to check their information across other banks. This product registered great success and was used close to 10 million times in 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service (Burns & Costanzo 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Zenith bank was also established in 1990 only that its management focused more on investors. The institution has grown steadily and has in most cases recorded homogeneous growth across departments.
Nigeria’s largest bank by asset is the First Bank. This bank was started in 1894 by Alfred Lewis jones, a British colonialist and en entrepreneur. The founder was a merchant mogul in see transport an also controlled precious metal trade to West Africa, and especially Nigeria. As a result, due to this situation, the bank has assets work over $23 billion or over NGN 4.3 trillion (Njoku & Adindu, Nwakwuribe, 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). For this reason, this financial institution has its own class of clients in the Nigerian market and faces no significant competition from its counterparts in the industry. Its clients are large overseas firms requiring financial services in scale that is not easily accessible to others. However, the bank also has corporate and personal clients in the middle and lower class Nigerians. The banks leadership is rather relaxed and laid back. As a result the banks’ rate of growth in client’s base is rather slow. However, it has among the lowest level of nonperforming loans. Due to its long history in the market the bank had over 10 million clients.
Its size and history ensures that it does not to risk a lot to survive or grow as it has proved to be dependable over time (Babalola & Omobowale 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). The First Bank is not usually the first in introducing new innovations in the markets. As said earlier, it enjoys preferential treatment from large companies as well as the financial high class in the Nigerian economy. As a result the bank is usually shielded from overexposure to non-performing loans (Njoku & Adindu, Nwakwuribe 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay For Me Without Delay). As a result, it has favorable long-term and short term rating from Fitch: The bank also very compliant with regulatory frameworks in the Nigeria economy and abroad.
4.4. GTB’S Leadership and Other Factors (Workers -Employer Relationship, Organization Policy, Competition, and Political Environment)
GTB’s leadership is a reflection of its (GTB) interaction with various factors in the internal and the external environment. A firm regulates various factors in the internal environment to ensure continued growth and profitability (Uzoma, Ifediora Chuka, Chukwu, Benjamin Ibe, & Mirdi, Fiia 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Since 2011, GTB has been seen to have a very different outlook, this occurred with the departure of Tayo and Fola to the current leadership. And this new leadership, the company’s staunch believe in professionalism and ethics is not emphasized (Apati 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). Additionally, the quality of customer service and customer care deteriorates. The firm’s top leadership dissociated itself with instances of poor customer service. When this complains was repeated many times, the firms top management initiated a direct line for disgruntled customers to launch complaints with the top management. It was noted that customers complains were rectified almost promptly. This shows that the top management had the power to ensure that their workers offered quality services to the clients. Such a delay in ensuring that this was accomplished made the top management to be engaged only to solve problems, rather than in preventing it. One, the top management could have failed to give clear instructions on how tom serve customers. Second, there could have been poor supervision that did not ensure that the top eldership’s guidelines are strictly followed (assuming such guidelines were issued). Lastly, the workers could have been stubborn and lacking in integrity and failed to follow guidelines given. However, the largely horizontal leadership structure, suggest that the firm does not put much emphasis on regulating and controlling their employees but gives them autonomy to exercise their skills, innovativeness and intuition to achieve the organization’s goals. That fact that the firm has continued to lead in provision of superior customer focused innovations show that this firm has highly skilled, highly trained and innovative staff members. The fact that this performance is not uniform across the board confirms the autonomy to staff members, but some do not use this autonomy well (Uzoma et al, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service).
GTB’s policy varies in accordance with the leadership, as the leadership in office brings its own policy (Gberevbie 2011). Before 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer, the firm had a policy of leading in offering superior customer care and services. It would achieve this through proper training of individual workers to exhibit the highest levels of professionalism and ethics in customer service (Swande 2013). After 2011, the firm’s policy seems unclear and the quality of customer service has greatly reduced. With increased employee turnover and many court battles arising from disgruntled corporate clients, the institution’s policy is unclear. This shows that the institution has shifted from its original policy. Its current provision of innovative products to customers may suggest that its policy has shifted emphasis from quality services to innovative products. This may also indicate that it has not yet formulated its guiding policy, for various reasons.
GTB’s leadership relates with competition in that the leadership tries to steer the firm in a way that is able to overcome its competition. For instance, the firms two decades of its operation saw the firm differentiate itself to become a firm that offered the most competitive, ethical and professional customer service in the industry, which enabled it to curve its niche’ and exponentially grow its customer base (Swande 2013). Its current attempt to develop online based services can also be seen as a way of product different ion for the firm to stay afloat. It is important to note that many of banks in the Nigerian economy have developed many online products. This makes its mandatory for all these firms to effectively differentiate their products to curve a niche out of the high-potential internet based platform.
GTB leadership’s actions or inactions have led the firm into many legal issues that resulted into legal battles, and which the firm ended up losing money. Among these issues include overcharging Innosons, obtaining court a court order that froze its clients’ accounts with other firms as well as noncompliance with regulations set by FCA. In other instances, the financial conditions in Nigeria lead to adoption of political decisions that adversely affected its operations. In 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, when the prices of oil fell, the inflow of the US dollars in Nigerian economy declined (Calì & World Bank Group, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). For this reason, the governments instructed banks to stop using the Dollar for unjustifiable reasons to prevent further depreciation of the Naira due to loss of the few dollars in the economy. As a result, banks, including GTB restricted the use of NairaCard ATM cards (Fawehinmi, F 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). This was occasioned by freezing of many accounts with short or no prior notice (Calì & World Bank Group 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). The firm’s leadership had nothing to do with this but could have issued prior notice to NairaCard clients (Fawehinmi, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service). Firms and even GTM have no control over the political environment they operate in (Gboyega, Le, Shukla, Søreide & World Bank 2011). The firm leadership only varies its internal factors to ensure that they are in line with the external ones, for instance political environment. The failure of GTB to advise its account holders in advance is not desirable and may make this institution to lose its customers.
5. CONCLUSION
GTB bank has seen many problems in its operations. These issues are as seen throughout the paper; some of these issues could have been avoided if the firm’s management took its time to decide what was good for the firm. Such issues included many legal battles that the firm found itself in which were initiated by its overcharged clients. Other clients complained about illegally freezing of their accounts. Others can be seen to have been occasioned by poor supervision of employees which made them not to serve their customers in ethical and professional manner. This could also have been occasioned by lack of direction from top leadership and management. The firm has also been seen to lack (or fail) to implement policies that could have made it compliant with market regulations. It is important to note that failure to comply led to a huge loss in form of fines. In many other instances, its clients have been left disgruntled by a wide array of actions, such as freezing of their accounts without notice, poor customer services among others. Finally, GTB has been seen to lose among the most important corporate identities which are low employee turnover by sacking many of its employees while others have left for various reasons. All of the issues are leadership missteps as has been demonstrated throughout the paper.
The firm is seen to utilize a style of leadership close to laissez faire where the leadership is largely absent but claims to offer autonomy to the staff. As a result, the firm lacks an overall goal and the performance depends on various departments. As a result, the firm’s performance is largely heterogeneous and lack consistency, especially after 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer. The firm’s development of mobile based and online services is not significant and cannot constitute brand differentiation, as that is the general direction taken by the entire industry and the entire economy.
Zenith bank and First Banks have similar leadership styles that are research paper writing service democratic and multilayered and enable these firms to set their overall goal and supervise their employees. These firms have homogeneous performance across departments, which is consistent over time. This is not the case with GTB. As seen throughout the paper, GTB’s leadership style influences its performance. Areas of future research remain especially as far as GTB’s leadership styles and failures are concerned. For instance, it is important to single out where leadership lapses occur. Further research will be needed to find out if the leadership fails to set the overall organization goals or if it is ineffective in influencing its employees to follow its policies. Additionally, some departments of this firm continue to perform well while others perform poorly. Further research would be important to establish how these departments continue to perform well even with ineffective overall leadership. One further area of research that needs to be pursued is the effect of GTB’s shift in its corporate identity. Its shift of emphasis from professional customer service to its current status need to be studied as well as what would be its effects.

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