By Ugwu, Christian Chibuike
Transformational leadership describes the ideal relationship between leaders and followers. It facilitates a redefinition of a people’s mission and vision, a renewal of their commitment and the restructuring of their systems for goal accomplishment. The ultimate goal of education management is to enhance the institutional mission by ensuring high quality teaching, training, research and services to the immediate and global communities. The achievement of these objectives requires good governance that combines social vision with the understanding of global issues coupled with efficient managerial skills to enhance academic leadership, thus academic productivity. The general goal of the study was to assess how the Federal Universities in South Eastern Nigeria had achieved effective management which is a necessity for their attainment of the world class University Status through the adoption of Transformational Leadership Behaviours. The specific objectives of this study are to: (i) examine the relationship between transformational leadership behaviours and effective management of Federal Universities in the South Eastern Nigeria; (ii) determine the extent to which Nigeria University managers apply transformational leadership roles in their management of the Federal Universities in South East and (iii) identify the challenges of transformational leadership behaviours in the management of the South Eastern Federal Universities. Primary and secondary sources of data collection were used in this study. Primary sources comprised personal observation and face to face interview. The secondary sources included books, newspapers, journals and official documents. The population of the study was 21,000 staff members comprising principal officers, lecturers, senior and junior administrative and Technical staff on the one hand, and a population of 91,000 students from University of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Federal University of Technology Owerri. Purposive sampling technique was employed in drawing a total of 69 members of staff and 21 student union executive members from different cadres in the three Universities studied. The study found out that Transformational Leadership Behaviours has significant relationship with effective management. Federal Universities in the South Eastern Nigeria need Transformational leaders to be able to attain a World Class University Status. The absence of idealized influence poses a challenge to the application of Transformational Leadership behaviours in the Federal Universities in South Eastern Nigeria.