Leadership styles and employees’ demographic factors as predictors of work stress among bankers in south-west Nigeria

Abstract

This paper aims to look into leadership styles and employees’ demographic factors as predictors of work stress among bankers in south-west Nigerian. The paper adopted a quantitative research approach. Besides, the current paper adopted a purposive, stratified, and simple random sampling. The empirical results indicated that out of the two leadership styles, (namely the transactional leadership and the transformational styles) examined in this paper, the transactional leadership style significantly and negatively predicts work stress among bank employees in south-west Nigeria; and employees’ demographic factors (such as marital status, level of education, and residential area) significantly predict work stress among bankers in south-west Nigeria. Notably, the current results positively influence work-stress management within the Nigerian banking industry as transactional leadership style significantly reduces work stress amongst bankers in south-west Nigeria. It will also help the management of banks in south-west Nigeria develop policies that support appropriate training programs, attain professional qualifications (for instance, ICAN/CIBN/ACCA), and be near workplaces. Banks in south-west Nigeria can minimize work stress through frequent adoption of transactional leadership style, and in supporting employees to achieve academic progress and enhance their nearness to the workplace. Nevertheless, this paper proposed some recommendations to decrease work stress among bankers in south-west Nigeria.