Small Business Leadership: Does Being the Founder Matter?

The success of a growing business is inextricably intertwined with the leadership capability of its chief executive. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether there are managerial differences between founder and non-founder chief executive officers (CEOs) of small and medium-sized enterprises. We report preliminary findings of a study of 151 chief executives and their firms, examining measures of proactive behavior, strategic posture, and organization structure. The findings indicate that founder CEOs are significantly more likely than non-founder chief executives to have a proactive disposition and point to the possibility of an indirect effect of that disposition on managerial style.