Small and medium enterprises within South Africa : an exploration into the role of transformational leadership on organisational evolution

Abstract

SMEs are major contributors to the economy, through economic outputs and job creation. However they are at a high risk of failure, due to a myriad of issues they face and their leaders are required to make difficult decisions to ensure the survival and the growth of the business. Although there has been prior work on transformational leadership and organisational growth, there is very little empirical research that serves to understand how these two aspects are linked. An exploratory qualitative research study was undertaken with ten leaders of SMEs that are at the five different growth phases of the Greiner Growth Model. This was done to gain the personal insights from SME leaders, into the link between transformational leadership and organisational growth. Each of the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis that picked up on common themes that arose from the respective interviews. The findings were such that the leadership style applied was dependent on the growth phase in which an SME found itself. In many of the cases, the leaders served to build teams that could be self-sufficient however in others they still required leadership interventions. Leaders however sought to be the ones leading the teams vision.