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This indicates that those younger than 40 years old place more importance on the skill of leadership than older entrepreneurs did. Generally, Start-up entrepreneurs have a strong desire to achieve their goals and targets. In order to succeed, they demonstrate extraordinary leadership skills in order to drive the organisation towards a vision that will enable the organisation to growth. The majority of the participants emphasised the fact that “job experience” constituted a critical factor that led to the improvement of leadership skills.
Analysis of the reliability of the sample: In order to ensure that a sample is reliable, the Cronbach's Alpha test was performed. The test aims at conducting an inter-correlation analysis of every pair of items in a sub-scale in order to measure to what extent they correlate with each other. The samples become reliable if they are highly correlated and if they are measuring the same thing (the scales must be above 0.75).
TABLE 4: SAMPLE RELIABILITY Skill
Leadership
Creativity & innovation Networking & trust Time management
Goal setting & commitment
Current 0.824 0.859 0.873 0.855 0.855
Cronbach’s Alpha
Level of importance 0.789 0.859 0.873 0.834 0.834
All the scales were higher than 0.75. Therefore, it can be argued that all the selected entrepreneurial skills demonstrated a high internal consistency with the Cronbach's Alpha.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A hundred and one respondents of the research consisted of business owners who had at least an academic certificate with business experience. It can be argued that the qualification level of an entrepreneur constitutes a strategic advantage that will improve his/her understanding of the trends in the markets and improve his/her ability to run an organisation more effectively on a daily basis.
The skill of leadership: In the literature review, it was mentioned that the primary functions of leaders included setting direction, aligning people and motivating and inspiring people. The secondary role of a leader focused on the competencies required of an efficient leader in order to manage an organisation successfully (Das et al., 2010: 198).
Ÿ The analysis of the perception of the two groups (40 years and younger and older than 40 years) showed that entrepreneurs in both age categories had a clear understanding and knowledge of the characteristics of efficient leaders. The majority of the participants emphasised the fact that “job experience” constituted a critical factor that led to the improvement of leadership skills.
Ÿ The two age categories (40 years and younger and older than 40 years) were further divided according to the number of years in operation and in view of the fact that leadership skills were mainly performed better if the entrepreneur had prior business experience.
THE IMPORTANCE LEVEL OF SPECIFIC SKILLS AS PERCEIVED BY SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESS OWNERS 219