EMOTIONAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOURS AND AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT AMONG EMPLOYEES OF SERVICE-BASED SMES IN SOUTH-EAST NIGERIA

Employee engagement is undeniably a vital component for success in any organization. However, turnover remains a great issue for many service-based SMEs in Nigeria, partly due to a lack of emotional attachment among staff. There is little to no research on how emotional aspects of leadership are responsible for the attachment, particularly in the context of Nigerian SMEs. This research looks to fill this gap by examining emotional leadership through the lenses of emotional awareness, empathic expression, emotional support and coaching, and how these factors contribute to affective commitment by employees. Data were collected from four hundred and three employees through the use of a descriptive survey designed for this purpose. The results show emotional leadership as a great attribute to commitment, most particularly with the emotional awareness of the leaders creating a sense of belonging. The results demonstrate that Nigerian SME leaders need to show a genuine interest in their employees and communicate with them on a personal level, in order to strengthen their tie with the employees. This is a conceptual shift for Nigerian SMEs, because it shows that organizational success is the result of technical expertise and great emotional intelligence. The study suggests that emotional leadership be included in the training of SME owners and policy makers as part of the national entrepreneurship development programme. Additionally, the SMEs are recommended to formalize their coaching and mentoring systems and to view empathy as a managerial skill. This will help to overcome the problem of low staff morale that is often the case for SMEs and will also create a competitive workforce.