Leading for Growth: Leadership Behaviours in Horticultural Export Firms in Kenya

Abstract

The horticultural export industry in Kenya is of great economic significance, but it is experiencing a decrease in global market share, labour-management problems, regulatory pressures, and volatile markets. While a manager's leadership behaviours style does not cause structural failures in the global market, it affects the firm's attention, risk interpretation and resource allocation, which in turn affects whether the firm expects or is prepared for volatile demand, high buyer standards, and regulatory disturbances. The study analysed the relationship between leadership behaviours and growth of horticultural export enterprises in Kenya. The research was grounded in Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory, which explains how leadership behaviours can influence the quality of leader–employee relationships which in turn influence a firm’s growth. Positivism philosophy and descriptive-correlational research design were applied. The target population was managers of 3948 firms and the sample consisted of 363 respondents, of which 300 responded and returned questionnaires. The self-reporting bias risk was mitigated by using objective financial data for growth. Descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression were used to analyse data. Transformational leadership had the largest relationship with growth (β = .334) while performance expectation and feedback were the second (β = 0.210), followed by ethical/value-based leadership (β = 0.173) and contingent reward behaviour (β = 0.163). However, leader's agreeableness had no statistically significant relationship with growth (β = 0.086, p = 0.074). The study recommends leadership training systems that focus on transformational leadership practices, ethics, accountability, feedback and innovation, and on performance-based rewards.