Leadership Styles and Agile Decision-Making in County Governments in Kenya: A Case Study of Nairobi City County, Kenya

In an era marked by dynamic policy changes, citizen expectations, and technological disruption, agile decision-making has become an indispensable capability for public sector institutions, particularly within devolved governance structures like Nairobi City County. Despite significant efforts to reform governance at the county level, sluggish decision-making, lack of innovation, and top-down leadership styles continue to undermine service delivery and institutional responsiveness. This study examined the effect of leadership styles on agile decision-making in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The specific objectives were to determine the effect of transformational, transactional, servant, and democratic leadership on agile decision-making. This study adopts Dynamic Capabilities Theory as the anchor theory to explain the dependent variable, agile decision-making. In addition, Transformational Leadership Theory, Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) Theory, Servant Leadership Theory, and Participative Decision-Making Theory are applied to support the independent variables of transformational, transactional, servant, and democratic leadership respectively. A descriptive research design was adopted, targeting a population of county departments within Nairobi City County Government. A sample of 10 departments was purposively selected, from which 171 respondents comprising departmental heads, senior managers, and technical officers were drawn using stratified and simple random sampling. Data were collected through structured questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS Version 28, employing correlation and multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The correlation results revealed that all four leadership styles were positively and significantly related to agile decision-making, with transformational leadership (r = 0.681, p < 0.01) showing the strongest relationship, followed by democratic (r = 0.674, p < 0.01), servant (r = 0.662, p < 0.01), and transactional leadership (r = 0.646, p < 0.01). Regression analysis further confirmed that transformational leadership (β = 0.340, p < 0.05), transactional leadership (β = 0.278, p < 0.05), servant leadership (β = 0.299, p < 0.05), and democratic leadership (β = 0.320, p < 0.05) each had a statistically significant positive effect on agile decision-making. The model explained 64 percent of the variance in agile decision-making (R² = 0.640, F = 74.751, p < 0.001). These findings demonstrated that leadership behaviours significantly influenced decision agility in Nairobi City County, with transformational and democratic leadership emerging as particularly influential. The study concluded that agile decision-making in devolved governance can be enhanced through leadership behaviours that emphasize vision, accountability, ethics, empowerment, consultation, and inclusivity. It recommends that Nairobi City County strengthen transformational and democratic leadership practices to enhance adaptability, responsiveness, and citizen-centered governance, while also reinforcing transactional and servant leadership dimensions that promote accountability and inclusivity. These findings provide valuable insights for county governments in Kenya and other devolved systems seeking to strengthen decision-making agility through effective leadership practices.