South Moravian SME´s Performance in Relation to Maturity of Leadership: Results of a Quantitative Research Study

The paper aims to clarify the ability of South Moravian SME managers to perform leadership skills. SME´s need to know how to influence affective organizational commitment, defined as a voluntary attachment to the organization, using methods that are cost effective. Application of adequate leadership practice is one of the major factors of success in small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK and Europe. Lack of leadership is cited as a cause of failure in companies and risk to the national and regional economy as well.Design/methodology/approach: We surveyed 112 manufacturing companies to obtain 77 questionnaire responds from South Moravian small manufacturing companies’ CEOs and filtered the total of 48 valid SME´s respondents. The total of 22 questions, mapped 4 groups of interest in the field of setting vision, enthusiasm, motivation, trust, talent, creativity and knowledge level perception of company CEO. Every question was rated from 1 – 5, when as higher value than higher perception of leadership was assumed. Questions were voluntarily possible to add with a short note explaining the value.Findings: It was found, that there are two major clusters of companies. These with low to average leadership performance (with L approximately 70% of less) and these with high performance (with L more than 70%). Minimal performance was 9.1%, maximal performance was 98,2%. Only 6 of selected companies performed more than 80%. Nevertheless 5 of them showing low score (>3) in the same subquestion focused at whether leaders inspire others to dreaming about "what if".Research/practical implications: Seven best-performing companies are very strong in evaluated leadership facets. In the future research pursue then explanation of the factors, which differs identified two clusters of companies, what differs those average from the best. We are going to conduct in depth interviews with CEO´s of these best performing companies, and we expect, that the results will lead to better understanding how to enhance level of leadership perception. Concurrently applicable advices will be formulated, to enhance companies, having average leadership performance. Originality/value: This paper fulfils an identified need to understand current leadership performance in South Moravian SME´s. Leadership perception was analysed and described in 4 groups of interest (vision, enthusiasm, motivation and talent).