Learning to lead and strategic decision making in shared leadership organisations: challenges and prospects for start- ups SMEs’ in Malaysia.

Abstract

The literature shows that shared leadership practice enhances the leaders’ leadership skills and abilities through the leaders’ collaboration and efforts. The objectives of the study are to understand the shared leadership within high growth SME startups in Malaysia, cover the leadership practice itself, the shared leaders’ learning to lead process and its strategic decision- making process. Six case studies were involved in data collection procedure and data were gathered by conducting 25 in-depth interviews with high growth SME leaders and employees. The study shows empirical evidence that the shared leadership practice has enhanced the leaders’ leadership skills and capabilities through the leaders’ teamwork and knowledge collaboration within the complex nature of the organization. There are three interesting emerging themes from the study findings that give a different perspective on the literature of shared leadership practice including early delegation of administrative team, friendship element as a basis for shared leadership team set up and additional leaders to the existing shared leadership team. The main contribution of this study to the social sciences field is the acquisition of a better understanding of the shared leadership process in high growth startups, as there is a shortage of studies conducted on this area. Thus, it gives a better comprehension of the shared leadership advantages to leadership development and positive organizational performance. The findings of the study highlight the existence of conflicts in shared leadership implementation. Finally, this research brings theoretical and methodological contributions as well as offering implications for business leaders, government agencies and policymakers. This study is limited to Malaysia’s business environment. Further research should be done on different settings, sectors, countries to examine shared leadership practice.