STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND SERVICE DELIVERY: EVIDENCE FROM DEVOLVED GOVERNMENTS IN KENYA

Abstract

Strategic leadership is an important concept as it enables leaders toempowers teams through envisioning, anticipating and creation of changesstrategically. However, the key challenge in the African context, with regardto political leaders, is that when they assume their state offices, they fail tofollow through the promises they made to the electorate. The main objectiveof the devolved governments is to bring improved services closer to thepeople. However, despite the Government of Kenya’s endeavour to devolvefunds to the grassroots, the economic welfare of the people is still poor. Thepurpose of this study was to determine the influence of strategic leadershipon service delivery by County Governments in Kenya. The study was basedon the upper echelon theory. This study used positivism research philosophywhere quantitative approaches were utilized in a cross-sectional survey. Theunit of analysis was the 47 Counties in Kenya. Six respondents werepurposively selected from six key departments in the counties and thus thestudy had a sample size of 282. The study used primary data collected usingquestionnaires. Data analysis was through descriptive and inferentialstatistics. The study regression results showed that strategic leadership hada significant influence on service delivery. It was therefore recommendedthat County Governments must understand the county leadership has to bemore strategic and train employees on innovations for better servicedelivery. The study recommended that the law enforcement agencies shouldenforce sanction on unethical leaders and employees to ensure more effectiveservice delivery.