Influence of Transformational Leadership on Change Management in the County Governments in Kenya

The environment in which the County Governments in Kenya operate is dynamic and changes often. The 2017 elections brought in new changes such as 3 female governors for the first time in the history of Kenya. Despite this the county governments continue to apply old and traditional methods to solve new kind of problems. This has led to numerous reported cases of corruption, political rivalry, conflict of interest, mismanagement of funds and undue procedures followed contrary to the existing regulations. The general objective of this study was to establish the influence of transformational leadership on change management among devolved units in Kenya. Specifically, the study aimed at determining the influence of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration on change management. This research adopted the Transformational-Transactional Leadership Theory, Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model and ADKAR model of change. A descriptive research design was used in this research. The 47 devolved units in Kenya served as the research population. This research relied on primary data collected through questionnaires. The collected data was converted into quantitative format to make analysis using statistical package for social sciences. The statistics generated were descriptive statistics which included mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics which included both correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. The study revealed a significant positive relationship between idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individual consideration and change management among devolved units. Regression analysis revealed that 51.5% of changes in change management among counties were attributed to the four indicators of transformational leadership. In conclusion, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration are essential in enhancing change management. Based on the findings, intellectual stimulation had the greatest influence on change management followed by inspirational motivation while individual consideration and idealized influence had the least influence. As a result, it is recommended that policy makers among the county governments should concentrate on transformational leadership because this improves change management.