Leadership-Powerlessness and Workplace Governance: A Managerial Behavior Context

The growth, sustainability and success of a corporate entity is largely predicated on its framework of interconnecting operational mechanisms, relationships, and processes. As a norm, statutory functions and institutions are enacted in firms to ensure that corporate obligated responsibilities, to themselves as well as their stakeholders, are carried out in a manner that bequeaths enormous benefits. It is a commonsensical expectation that persons saddled with the responsibility to drive these processes, possess requisite and commensurate capacity to act in positive organizational result-oriented directions. However, Executive functionaries in corporate entities seem incapacitated to the extent that the desirable outcomes are not achieved. This work was to determine the contextual behavioral implications of powerlessness in persons occupying leadership positions with a view to highlighting the psychological promptings of the leaders as well as the intruding influences militating against them. This will give a broad knowledge of the issues at stake and a clearer understanding of the solutions proffered. The apparent unencouraging outcomes of corporate entities in Nigeria gave the impetus to this Paper to explore Leadership-powerlessness as a function of the empowerment capacity levels of executive functionaries vis-à-vis workplace governance. This paper regards workplace governance as an end indicative of outcomes that make for growth, sustainability, and survival of corporate entities. The study also suggested ways forward that will mitigate the leadership-powerlessness quagmire.