Mountain Top University Library

Employee retention is a major concern of the Nigerian job market today because of increased
employee turnover. The recently released report released by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics
indicated that approximately 10million people moved from full employment to
underemployment or unemployment. This can be said to be as a result of the series of
Government Economic policies, Crude oil price crash,, mergers and acquisition of companies
in the Oil and Gas industry, loss of job commitment and low employee morale. The Nigerian
Oil and Gas sector is a strategic sector in the economy of the nation which drives the country’s
economy; however, any challenges being faced in the Oil and Gas sector will not only affect
the industry but can have an adverse effect on the economy of Nigeria if employee retention
strategies are not put in place. This study was therefore designed to investigate the impact of
leadership style on employee retention in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector. More so, it was
aimed at identifying the leadership style that best encourages employee retention in the Oil and
Gas companies, with particular emphasis on the transformational and the transactional
leadership styles. The primary data for this study was collected through questionnaires and
analysed using the Statistical Package for Social sciences (SPSS). Data was collected through
both open ended and close ended questions with a five point Likert scale. The study used the
purposive, snowball and convenience sampling technique in order to get response from the
respondents. The study revealed that leadership style has a moderate significance on employee
retention and that the transactional leadership style best encourages employee retention in the
Nigerian Oil and Gas sector. The study recommends that leaders and managers should properly
implement the exchange process of the transactional leadership style to mitigate employee
turnover in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector