DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2020.v07i04.002

Pages: 137-146

Entrepreneurial leadership has been tipped as one of the millennium solutions to challenges associated with the current competitive and dynamic global business environment. Majority of businesses operating in the localities of Benue state in Nigeria including Makurdi, the state capital are on small and medium scale. For decades now, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) are considered as an important aspect of Nigeria’s economy and this makes it quite necessary to investigate the extent to which entrepreneurial leadership may boost performance of SMEs. Considering this fact, this study seeks to examine the effect of entrepreneurial leadership on performance of SMEs in Benue state, Nigeria. The study employed a quantitative survey research design. This study targeted a population of 708 owners/ managers who assume leadership positions in SMEs across Benue state. This number cuts across sectors like food processing, livestock rearing, trading, art/craft, bakery, table water, fashion and designing/hair dressing and ICT. Out of this figure 400 owners/managers were selected to represent the sample through purposive sampling technique. The data collection instrument for the study was a self-administered questionnaire Validity and reliability test were carried out on 30 employees from other organizations who were not part of the sample and through Cronbach’s alpha the overall reliability co-efficient of 0.896 was obtained. The instrument was therefore considered consistent to be used in this study. The cleansed data was further quantitatively analyzed by product moment correlation and multiple regressions. Correlation was used to determine the magnitude of the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and performance of SMEs while multiple regressions was used to test how leadership style explains changes in business performance of SMEs. Analysis was done with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 21). Results of correlation analysis reveal....