Entrepreneurial Leadership : A Conceptual Examination

Entrepreneurial leadership involves the core process of leading in the entrepreneurial situation of creating new values. The study of entrepreneurial leadership in many ways parallels the study of leadership in organizational settings. Like the leadership research, the multiple approaches adopted in the study of entrepreneurial leadership include the trait approach, the contingency approach and the new-genre approach in explaining the effectiveness of entrepreneurial leadership. An eclectic approach to entrepreneurial leadership by drawing upon the key process of other perspectives presents a holistic view of effectiveness. Entrepreneurship and leadership are complementary to each other that there is no entrepreneurship without leadership and all leaders are necessarily entrepreneurs in their leading and entrepreneurial activities. However, in theory and practice, there is a lack of consensus among researchers as some give importance to the entrepreneurial facet of entrepreneurial leadership, and yet others prefer to deal with the leading processes of entrepreneurship. In this study, an attempt is made to understand the concept of entrepreneurial leadership in a holistic framework