Leadership Styles in Small and Medium Sized Business: Evidence from Macedonian Textile SMEs

Abstract

Since leaders can have a strong influence on the employees' behavior, various approaches have been designed to determine the most effective style of leadership. As a field of study, the review of past research reveals that investigating leadership styles has been mainly focused on large businesses. Despite the great importance of leadership to SMEs, not many studies attempted to explore the leadership style embraced by SMEs, especially within the Macedonian context. The purpose of this study is to explore the presence of different leadership styles (autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire) in Macedonian SME. Moreover, in view of the main research objective, several demographic variables were examined, such as gender, age and working experience as to their relevance for the dominant leadership style, with a special focus on managers of small and medium sized businesses from the textile industry. Using a Leadership Style Questionnaire, the research measured different leadership Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation

The Importance of Intergenerational Leadership Praxes and Availability of Key Information for Older Employee Burnout and Engagement in the Context of Firm Size

“…New business times require new approaches and ways of leading ( Bojadziev et al, 2019 ). The desire for greater efficiency and competitiveness is the main reason for introducing agile leadership, especially during these challenging times ( Attar and Abdul-Kareem, 2020 ).…”

“…An agile work environment is characterized by teamwork, a high level of communication, and a low degree of standardization and formalization ( Attar and Abdul-Kareem, 2020 ; McCombs and Williams, 2021 ). It is almost impossible for companies to grow and expand without effective leadership, as is imperative in an ever-changing market ( Bojadziev et al, 2019 ). While large corporations can survive for a short time without appropriate leadership, the opposite is often true for small businesses ( Cong and Thu, 2021 ).…”

“…Small business owners and employers have the power to impact their employees’ mental health in a big way by helping people feel safe, heard, and valued ( Cong and Thu, 2021 ). Accurately providing information about work and changes in a small business leads to the better mental wellbeing of older employees ( Bojadziev et al, 2019 ). Prioritizing mental health keeps employees engaged and increases productivity.…”

“…Communication and leadership become exponentially more important as a company gets larger ( Knezović and Drkić, 2021 ). According to Bojadziev et al (2019) , the democratic style is typical for SMEs. It focuses on group relationships and the sensibility of employees in the company.…”

“…Several studies have examined leadership ( Cong and Thu, 2021 ), employees’ wellbeing ( Gregersen et al, 2016 ), motivation, creativity, engagement ( Bojadziev et al, 2019 ; Knezović and Drkić, 2021 ), and stress ( Bean, 2018 ) from the viewpoint of the firm size. But according to our knowledge, the studies have not yet explored how the specific agile leadership practices from the perspective of providing the key information to employees can influence the presence of burnout and work engagement specifically for older employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, also considering the mediation role of the company size.…”