Fostering Entrepreneurial Mentoring Culture for Sustainable Leadership Performance in Nigeria: Evidence from Selected SMEs in Ilorin Metropolis

The human resources are the most important resources an organization can boast of in the 21st century, since it ensures the efficient and effective utilization of other types of resources, hence their continuous development. One of the ways of developing human resources is through entrepreneurial mentoring. Mentoring is among the few tools needed for preparing tomorrows' skilled employees and is also used to strengthen organizational capabilities, intelligence, build organization knowledge, and sustain the organization competitive advantage. The dynamic career environment heightens the need for entrepreneurs engaging other people in their career and personal development. This study examined the effect of entrepreneurial mentoring on performance of SMEs in Kwara State. Data for the study were obtained from primary sources with the aid of a structured questionnaire. The research design adopted was a descriptive survey design which was also cross sectional in nature. Data collected were analyzed and hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 5% level of significance. Findings revealed that psychosocial mentoring support, career mentoring support and role modelling mentoring support all had significant relationship with SMEs performance as all their respective p values were less than 0.05 alpha values. Effective and efficient mentorship programs tend to raise entrepreneurial outcomes among upcoming entrepreneurs operating SMEs. Based on the findings of this study, the study concludes that there is significant relationship between psychosocial mentoring support and SMEs performance; there is also significant relationship between career mentoring support and SMEs performance, there is significant relationship between role modeling mentoring support and SMEs performance. The study recommends that SMEs owners must be steadfast in fostering an entrepreneurial mentoring culture within the organisation. Also, SMEs owners must be steadfast in continuously providing sponsorship, coaching, exposure, visibility, protection and providing challenging assignments to employees. Also, succession planning must be continually improved and sustained.