The Commitment to effective teaching appears to be low in many of Nigerian Federal Universities (NFUs). That is whyNFUs are being ranked lowly among their counterpart in the world. Previous studies show that the role of managerial leadership, quality of work-life of academic as the constraints to Institutional Goal Attainment (IGA) without considering Leadership Factors (LFs)- Leadership Time Frame (LTF), Leadership Styles (LSs), Leadership Experience (LE). This paper therefore investigated the influence of LFs on IGA in federal universities in southwestern Nigeria. The paper adopted descriptive survey research design. The population of this study comprised 7,598 Academics Staff (AS) of the six federal universities in southwestern Nigeria. Sample size for this paper was 633 AS and 1266 students. Purposive sampling technique was used to select three federal universities (UI-1,484, OAU-1,380 and UNILAG-1355) being first generation universities. Proportionate to size sampling technique was employed to sample 15% academic staff from each university selected for the study (UI- 223, OAU-207 and UNILAG-203). Simple random sampling technique was used to select two (2) students who have received lectures under the sampled academic staff. The instruments used are self-developed Leadership Factors Questionnaire (LFQ) and Students ‘Assessment of Teaching Questionnaire (SATQ). The reliability coefficient of 0.86 and 0.95 were obtained through Cronbach’s Alpha method respectively. Research questions were analysed using frequency counts, simple percentages, mean and standard deviation while research hypotheses were tested with Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation and multiple regression. The result showed that the status of IGA was high. Democratic leadership style is the most commonly leadership style adopted by academic leaders. The finding of the study indicated that a very weak negative significant relationship among LTF (r =-0.12), LSs(r =- 0.145), LE(r =- 0.156) and IGA. The result also revealed that LE (β = 0.18) was found to have significantly contributed to IGA in NFUs. The result equally indicated that LFs (LTF, LE and LSs) jointly and significantly contributed to IGA (F (3, 1278) = 10.697; Adj. R2=0.022), accounting for 2.2% of its variance. The IGA in the area of quality teaching should be sustained by the university leaders. Democratic style of leadership should be sustained. The paper also recommended that highly experienced academic leaders should be maintained whenever a position of heads of departments, directors and deans of faculties is vacant.
