Pengaruh gaya kepimpinan kepala desa terhadap kualiti perkhidmatan awam: Kajian kes Kabupaten Indragiri Hilir Riau

The quality of public services is influenced by several factors such as policy of the government, human resource, leadership style and the availability of funds. Today, Kabupaten Indragiri Hilir, despite the variety of funding allocated to administer good public services; the existing 170 villagers are still poor. The village heads, play a
significant role in shaping effective public delivery system service and quality in spite of being at the lowest management level of the Regency of Indragiri Hilir, Riau. The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of village heads leadership style and the availability of funding on the quality of public services in the Regency. Situational Leadership Theory and Blanchard Theory of Leadership Style are selected
as the framework of the study. Questionnaire and official documents are used to collect data. Out of 170 villages, 17 are involved as the sample in this study. The total population is about 5,780 and respondents involved are 507. The questionnaires are used to study the perception on the influence of leadership style on the quality of public services. Meanwhile, the documents analysis cover four types of funding sources which are the central, provincial, district and village fundings in the last 5 consecutive years (2008-2012). Data are analyzed to test the hypothesis of the
influence of leadership styles and the availability of public funds with the quality of public service using regression techniques with t test, F test and coefficient of determination. The findings show that leadership style of village heads significantly influence the quality of public services. In poor villages, direction and delegation styles are dominant among the village heads. While in developed villages, delegation
style is more dominant and participation style for more affluent villages. The availability of funds for the wellbeing of the people also has an influence on the quality of public services. In order to further improve the quality of public services, it is suggested that a training to improve the technical and managerial skills of the
village heads should be prioritized. The results of this study provide a model of leadership of village heads that could improve the quality of public services, particularly in the Regency of Indragiri Hilir Riau.