Visionary Leadership, Performance and the Future of Small-to-Medium Enterprises in Zimbabwe

The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of visionary leadership on the performance of Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Harare. The rapid surge in entrepreneurial activities, which includes the SMEs, appears to be a major solution to the challenges confronting emerging economies, especially within the context of the Global South. However, visionary leadership that can sustain the long-term performance of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises-extending beyond the first three years of operation-remains largely out of reach for many SMEs. The volume of small-to-medium enterprises activities in the Zimbabwean economy has drastically increased, however, the lack of appropriate visionary leadership application appears to be prejudicing the small business to achieve its full potential. Worldwide, SMEs are critical to local economies and, to a large extent, positively impact on the world‟s economy and that explains why countries like Zimbabwe have created a fully-fledged Ministry of SMEs. This scenario where there is a fully fledged SMEs Ministry and various SMEs groupings, all established to offer support to the SMEs, would ordinarily have meant that SMEs could have been performing well. However, results on the ground and many researches reveal quite the opposite and all this points to a lack of visionary leadership. The study utilised the quantitative research design in which survey methodologies were used to gather data. The instruments used were the questionnaire and interviews with players within the SME sector. The sampling process was accomplished in two phases namely, cluster sampling followed by convenience sampling. The calculated sample size was 370 and the response rate was 95%. The findings were presented in tabular and various graphical forms and the implications of each finding has been discussed. Most of the owners and managers of SMEs lack visionary leadership which must be harnessed to guarantee long life and high performance of SMEs. Through this visionary leadership SMEs can be assured of effective strategic leadership which can excel in strategic planning for effectiveness in the SME business and exceptional performance. The study reveals that visionary strategic leadership for SMEs is lacking due to several factors which include, lack of knowhow, focus on short term gains, lack of innovation and lack of requisite skills.