Chief Executive Officers Perception of Critical Success Factors in Corporate Leadership in Kenya

Abstract

Chief executive officers (CEOs) play a major role in ensunng long term success of their organizations, effective leadership being the key determinant; CEOs must discover practical and innovative ways to handle their most challenging responsibilities in a world where change is the only known constant. Effective leadership is often the key determinant of a firm's long-term success. In order to fully realize their managers' and top-managers' leadership potential companies invest highly m leadership development and the design of management systems and leadership frameworks. This research project investigated the CEOs perceptions of critical success factors in corporate leadership. The research project will act as a guide to the board of directors during their selection and development of CEOs in Kenya as it will assist them in creating the right success factors in corporate leadership. Government will also be guided by this study by realizing factors that contributes to increased effectiveness in leadership success and vision 2030 will be a reality. Also academicians will share the knowledge and best practices that guarantee success in the management of organizations. The data collected was collected from 32 CEOs from in Kenya by a well structured questionnaire. The results from the CEOs demonstrate that majority of them rate the critical success factors in corporate leadership namely visionary leadership, developing a shared vision, valuing human resources, transformational leadership, employment of best practices in change management, corporate governance and customer focus as very important in ensuring corporate leadership success. The findings also show that more that emotional intelligence among executives is a very important component in corporate leadership in Kenya. Based upon the current investigation's findings, future research should consider investigating Critical factors that lead to failure in corporate leadership and Investigate also if the CEOs perceptions of critical success factors match those of their peers in other contexts and also those of their subordinates.