Profiling Leadership Performance of Fisheries Village’s Leaders in Terengganu, Malaysia

Leadership performance by village leaders is essential to promote sustainable life among rural communities, especially fisheries community who living along coastal villages. Otherwise, previous studies found that performance issues among village’s leaders remain as serious problems, and need to find the best solution. This study was conducted to profile the job performance among village leaders based on demographic factors such as educational level, age and experiences as village leader. The data of this cross-sectional survey were collected by questionnaires on 300 respondents consist of members of village organization through stratified sampling’s technique, while the data was analysed by SPSS using items of mean, standard deviation, independent-sample t-test and anova. The finding shown that there were differences in job performance among village leaders on educational level, age and experiences. Interestingly, the finding told the best on job performance among village leaders are (i) the age between 41 to 50 years old; (iii) the experience between 11 to 20 years; and (iii) the higher educational level the higher job performance among them. This result can be using by government or any responsible parties to improve job performance among village leaders, especially for recruitment selection and for in-service training.


Introduction
There are many factors that predicted the effectiveness of services to the targeted groups, specifically toward fishermen communities that living on coastal villages. One of the factor is the effectiveness of leadership of the village leaders (Mohd Razali, 2008;Mohd Yusof, 2003). However, the performances of leadership in the village organization remains in moderate level even though high expectation have been placed (Mohd Razali, 2008;Romzi 2001). This situation was resulted in less successfulness to act as a catalyst for community development (Mohd Razali, 2008). Most of Village Development and Safety Committee (JKKK) were found to be inactive in performing their role as leader of the village as assigned. For example, the District Office of Kuala Terengganu in State of Terengganu would only considered 23 active JKKK organizations as compared to 292 units of JKKK found in the district of Kuala Terengganu in 2012 (Utusan Malaysia, 2014). This problem had caused the District Office to introduce new standard in 2013 in order to measure the effectiveness level of particular JKKK's role.
According to the report by Ministry of Rural and Regional Development (2011), there is JKKK that hardly hold any meeting in 2011 and only organize once or twice meeting per year. In the same report, the Ministry of Rural and Regional Development has confirmed that there are four major drawbacks of JKKK, namely; less implementation of community services, less concern for the poor and community members in need of assistance, less helpful to government and did not provide village's profiles that lead to the improper projection for the development needs. The chairman of JKKK also less proactive in playing their role, for instance did not hold meetings, not make a report, as well as not being able to take responsibility to the root cause that eventually raised the complains, thus affect the government's image. As a result, there are seven JKKK's chairman were suspended in 2013 in Marang district after failing to achieve the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) (Utusan Malaysia, 2014).
Thus, this study was conducted to identify and profiling the leadership performance among coastal village leaders. The study was focusing on the level of job performance and differences of job performance relating to their demographic factors such as education level, age and experiences as JKKK's member. Hopefully, by the result, we could suggest the best criteria for recruitment of village leaders, could improve the training syllabus for in-service leaders, and evaluation standard for any incentive awards.

Background
As unit of organisation, a leader needs to well perform in their job performances. Job performance involves employee behaviour that is part of observation of job (Cook, 2008). Previous studies conducted by Arifin (1985) stated that work performance as level of achievement of an employee to perform the job that has been assigned. Hunter and Hunter (1984) briefly defined work performance as organizational interest because it is essential in improving the productivity of workers in the workplace. Birnbaum and Somers (1993) then noted work performance as supervisory assessment that is conducted as a part of an ongoing process of organizational performance assessment. Murphy (1989) proposed work performance as a function of individual's performance on a particular task, which consists of the description standard of the job scope. It is also influenced by variables such as maintaining good interpersonal relationships, absenteeism, abuse and behaviour that involves danger in the workplace. These aspects should be taken into account to ensure that the work is done wisely in order to improve work performance.
Work performance is an essential construct in the organizational practice as it plays the role in the workers' decisions such as promotion and merit-based promotion. Thus, Befort and Hattrup (2003) showed that the essence of work performance depends on the demand of work, goals, mission and the organizational beliefs about the behaviours evaluated. Gryn (2010) stated that work performance is an act that involves a process and product (output end) where the individual may be influenced by the overall operation of the organization. Nevertheless, Badriah (2013) explained job performance consists of a combination of three factors, namely the abilities and interests of the workers, the ability to accept the explanation of the tasks delegation, and also the role and motivation of employees. Job performance is one measure of a person's work in an organization and become consideration in the implementation of the promotion. Performance of a work can be seen by the quality possessed such as efficiency, skill, experience, and work environment (adaptability). Abd. Hair et al., (2013) asserted job performance is a result of the work achieved in executing the tasks assigned based on the competence, experience, dedication and working hours.
Job performance is the work achievement by an employee on certain aspects. Based on the study, work performance is the ability of an employee as a group member of organizations to solve a given task in terms of the amount of work, quality, quantity, timeliness, positive attitude and etc. Campbell et al., (1993) proved that there are eight factors to be taken into account to explain the concept of behavioural work performance, namely: (i) the efficiency of certain tasks, (ii) mastery of task specialization, (iii) mastery of communications, (iv) efforts, (v) maintaining self-discipline, and (vi) improving the team performance, (vii) leadership and (viii) work management. Barrick and Mount (1991) argued that the concept of prudence is related with job performance because it shows personal characteristics of continual planning, cautious, responsible and hardworking. They stressed that these properties are important for completing all of the given tasks. Patricia et al., (1996) confirmed that the high job performance employee is who focus on customer needs, fluent in communication, teamwork oriented, have technical expertise, able to lead and adapt and also innovative. Viswesvaran (1993) proposed in his study about the concept of job performance which consists of ten key dimensions. They are: (i) total job performance, (ii) productivity, (iii) communication, (iv) work-related knowledge, (v) interpersonal skills, (vi) quality, (vii) leadership, (viii) efforts, (ix) compliant to the rules, and (x) administration skills. Mathur et al., (2007) explained that there are four factors that cover job performance, namely: (i) satisfaction on work quality, performance standards and independence in performing tasks, (ii) the honesty to the job and organization, (iii) mutual respect between employees and senior leaders, and (iv) work environment that involves a professional relationship between leader and employee, work knowledge and frequency of presence in the workplace. Gryn (2010) demonstrated that job performance comprised of three factors, which are; input, process and output that are affected by external environment. Organizational approach is a basic set of interdependent to each other. Badriah (2013) outlined many factors that driving the increase in job performance such as salaries, education and training, discipline, work environment and climate, technology, management and performance opportunities. Other factors include are quantity and quality of work, reliability, initiative, hard work, attitude and punctuality in the workplace.
Referred to the previous theoretical and literatures, this study conceptualized job performance for village leaders in terms of (i) ability to finish the task, (ii) concerning all aspect in task, (iii) involving in all activities about the task, (iv) finish the task as needed, (v) finish the task in given time-frame, (vi) ability to produce high quality output, (vii) ability to practice creativities, and (viii) ability to finish the task as needed volume.

Method
The study was applied a cross sectional survey design by quantitative methods. The 300 participants were JKKK's members in fisheries coastal village in Terengganu, Malaysia, that were selected using stratified sampling method. Data was collected by questionnaire which was applied the Likert scale with five choice of responses toward the frequency of practices, starting with 'never' to 'very often'. Eight items that marked as F8 to F15 were used to measure the job performance of the leaders. Then, data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The Initial step analysis is about to confirm the validity and reliability of measurement, which was focused on standard loading, convergent validity, composite reliability and discriminant validity. The items of instrument were considered accepted when regression weight for standard loading are 0.708 and above, average variance extracted (AVE) for convergent validity of construct are 0.5 and above, composite reliability (CR) are 0.708 and above, square root AVE for discriminant validity greater than value of correlation between items (Hair et al, 2010). The measurement model also assume as fit when at least one of fit index from each category namely basic, relative and parsimony was achieved, where CMIN ratio < 5, CFI and NFI > 0.9, PCFI and PNFI > 0.5, and RMSEA < 0.1 (Meyers et al, 2013). The second step analysis is to profile the differences of job performance level according to demographic factor such as age, academic level and experience in organization. For the purpose, analysis of variance (anova) was applied, the differences were considered significant once significant level equal or lower than 0.05. Figure 1 showing the result of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for measurement of job performance of the village leaders. It was found that all suggested items were better reflected as job performance indicators which regression weight for standard loading scored greater than 0.701. By this result, we can conclude that all of those eight items validated to measure the variable of job performance.  Table 1. The finding shown the measurement of job performance by the eight items got convergent validity when AVE scored greater than 0.5, got composite reliability when CR scored greater than 0.70, got discriminant validity when square root of AVE greater than intercorrelation items as shown in next Table 2. Table 1 also show Alpha Cronbach, normality testing using skewness and kurtosis, which conclude that data is valid for parametric testing. The result in Table 2 shows four of items for job performance scored at high level, those items are F8 to F11 which represent the performance on ability to finish the task, concerning all aspect in task, involving in all activities about the task, and finish the task as needed. The others items namely F12 to F15 scored at moderate level, which represent the performance on finish the task in given time-frame, ability to produce high quality output, ability to practice creativities, and ability to finish the task as needed volume. As a whole measurement for job performance variable, score mean 3.693 showing that performance is at moderate level, need for more focus to raise to high level. Table 2 also shows the inter-correlation between items, which found all the indicator well correlated each other's. By anova analysis, it was found that the job performance of village leaders differ by the factors of educational level, age and service experience in the organization. The result of the testing was shown in Table 3. Using the post hoc test, the result shows that the village leaders who have higher education level is better in job performance compare the leaders with lower educational level. The result found leaders with university, college and secondary school perform better than leaders with primary school educational level.

Result
The result also found the leaders with ages between 41-50 years perform better compare the leaders bellow 40 years, and also perform better compare than leaders over 50 years old. By this finding, it is look like the leaders with moderate age more effective compare the younger with lower experience, and compare with elder might be some problem in health, motivation and so on.
The result also shows that the leaders with 11-20 years of experience in those village organization perform better than leader with experience bellow than 10 years, and also better than the leaders with more than 21 years of experience. The result might showing the new leaders still not enough experience to perform well, and too long in organization also resulted burn-out performance maybe because off health problem, motivational problem and so on.

Conclusion
As a whole, job performance among leaders, especially in fisheries villages still remain at moderate level, found similar to previous studies. This finding shows that there is still a lot of effort required by the authorities to improve work performance among village leaders. The federal government agencies and state government agencies who responsible for this village-level organization should continue to conduct training, monitoring and any needed action to improve the performance of village leaders, thereby ensuring that the government's delivery system to the community runs smoothly and effectively.
This study also proves that leaders with higher education levels are better at work performance. The government should consider these findings seriously, especially in the process of appointing leaders at the village level. Priority should be given to candidates who have a better educational background, rather than less educated candidates. Additionally, the government must also formulate an effective training syllabus to existing village-level leaders, at least to ensure that they receive informal educational input, in order to increase their performance.
The findings also show the age and duration of service affect the performance of village leaders. Therefore, it is recommended that the government appoint leaders within the age of 40 to 50 years as a leader. At that age, their work performance is at an optimal level. Avoid appointing too young leaders, especially under the age of 40, and avoid appointing over-aged leaders, especially over 60 years. Both age levels are less effective due to inadequate experience and the likely downturn in health. The government also needs to avoid appointing village leaders over an extended period of time, especially over 20 years of service. This study shows that leaders who hold positions over 20 years are somewhat less likely to perform their work