Influence of Leadership Practices on Service Quality Delivery in Private Higher Education Institutions in the Kumasi Metropolis of Ghana

Enrolment levels among private higher education institutions in the Kumasi Metropolis have been on a steady decline for the past three years. Investigations were conducted to establish the nature of leadership practices among these private institutions, analyze the perspective of students and employees on service quality and establish the relationship between leadership practices and service quality. The study was quantitative with descriptive cross-sectional design. Three private higher education institutions were sampled with 367 students, 53 lecturers and 58 administrative staff. A questionnaire which considered leadership practices by Kouzes and Posner and service quality under the SERVQUAL was designed for the study. Descriptive statistics, gap analysis and SPSS software were deployed for the analysis. The results on the leadership practices revealed that Model the way dimension saw a mean and standard deviation of (M=3.83, SD= 1.01), Inspired a shared vision (M=3.89, SD= 1.00), Challenge the process (M=3.91, SD=0.99), Encourage the Heart (M=3.83, SD=1.0) and Enable others to Act (M=3.78, SD= 1.04). On the service quality delivery, Tangibility dimension had a mean difference from perception and expectation to be 0.05, Reliability -0.01, Responsibility 0.04, Assurance 0.07 and Empathy dimension 0.01. On the relationship between leadership practices and service quality delivery, the Pearson Product moment of correlation coefficient was 0.64 and coefficient of determination 41 %. It emerged from the study that Private higher education institutions in the Kumasi Metropolis exhibit exemplary leadership, deliver quality services and Leadership practices had a strong positive correlation with service quality.