Leadership self-efficacy and staff organizational citizenship behavior in higher education institutions: experience from Nigeria

Education is the cornerstone of national development. Higher education institutions are responsible for producing skilled manpower needed to attain sustainable economic, social and technological development. In order to make higher education institutions responsive and productive, effective leadership is needed. Leader's self-efficacy plays a vital role in attainment of the goals of an organization. Therefore, this study looked at the relationship between leaders' self-efficacy and staff' organizational citizenship behavior in higher education institutions in Lagos State, Nigeria. A survey questionnaire was used to gather information from 420 staff across 10 different higher education institutions. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Independent t-test were used to analyze the data. The finding shows that there is a positive relationship between high self-efficacy and staff's organizational citizenship behavior. Also, a negative relationship exists between low self-efficacy and staff's organization citizenship behavior. Similarly, there is no significant difference in the mean scores of staff on high and low self-efficacy in relation to staff gender. To make higher education in Nigeria more functional and responsive to needs of stakeholder, leaders must develop positive attitude to work and strive to promote a healthy-relationship with their followers.