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The paper examines the effect of a transformational leadership style on the performance of universities in Nigeria. Efforts are being made by government, accreditation agencies and other higher education organisations to improve quality and performance of higher institutions in Nigeria, yet the Nigerian universities are left behind based on the statistics of universities that merit the world ranking table. The performance of the university system in Nigeria is a reflection of its leadership and management. Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire survey using the entire census. Partial Least Squares (PLS) algorithm and bootstrap techniques were used to test the hypothesis of the paper. The result revealed that a transformational leadership style had a significant positive effect on university performance. Therefore, the management of universities should adopt the principles and assumptions of a transformational leadership theory for better performance. Improved university performance can address the problem of low-quality universities in Nigeria. Ahmed Abubakar is currently an academic staff with the Department of Accounting and Business Administration, Federal University Kashere, Nigeria. He obtains his Ph.D. in Management (Strategic Management), Master of Science and Bachelor of Science (Business Administration). Sani Ahmed holds a B.Sc (Ed) degree in Economics of the University of Abuja, Nigeria in 2004. He also studied at the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria and University of Colombo, Sri Lanka where he obtained his M.Ed and PhD degrees respectively