Situational Leadership Role in Enhancing Organizational Performance during Covid 19 Pandemic among a Sample of Kuwaiti SMEs

Abstract

COVID 19 hit the world during the end of 2019 and beginnings of 2020, the virus was deadly and fast to spread which had caused a lot of disturbance among country in terms how to avoid such crisis and make sure to get out of it with the least losses possible. The current research sought to examine the impact of situational leadership theory and its dimensions (directive, supportive and delegative) in enhancing organizational performance during COVID 19 pandemic, and how this type of leadership managed to preserve the best performance of many organizations. Depending on quantitative approach and utilizing an electronic questionnaire, researcher adopted a sample of (344) managers and leaders within Kuwaiti SMEs during the fiscal year 2021-2022. SPSS was used to analyze collected primary data, and outcomes of analysis indicated that situational leadership helped a lot during COVID 19 breakout as it saved and preserved an acceptable level of performance among SMEs, in addition to that, it was seen that the directive leadership style of situational leadership theory was the most influential in running a good and acceptable level of performance during the pandemic. Based on such results, current research recommended the need to increase attention to the fact that one of the defects of situational leadership is its failure to identify the leadership skills required for certain situations, and thus it is necessary to identify these skills and work on developing them among individuals.