Do individual differences matter for entrepreneurs’ leadership behavior in Africa?

Individual differences are important in various fields including entrepreneurship. While research on personality traits is not new in entrepreneurship, Gartner’s (1988) wake up call saw a changing research trend where scholars started going beyond profiling entrepreneurial traits to investigating how personality traits are related to actions and outcomes of entrepreneurial processes. It is within this context that this paper focuses on the relationship between entrepreneurs’ individual differences, such as personality traits, and leadership behavior. Despite the fact that personality traits are important for entrepreneurial processes and outcomes, research on emerging economies has paid little attention to entrepreneurs’ personality and leadership behaviour. This paper therefore fills this gap byinvestigating how individual differences (personality and intelligence) influence leadership behavior among entrepreneurs in the African context. Based on a survey of 323 entrepreneurs in East Africa, this study found that transformational leadership, instrumental leadership, contingent rewards and contingent punishment were positively predicted by conscientiousness, honesty and emotionality. Of all the personality dimensions, conscientiousness was the strongest predictor of leadership, reporting significant and positive relationships with transformational leadership, instrumental leadership and contingent punishment. Contingent punishment was negatively predicted by agreeableness and general intelligence while non-contingent punishment was negatively predicted by honesty