| The emergence of the information technology industry and the Internet has led to the unprecedented emergence of high-technology start-ups. The failure rate for these firms, however, is exceptionally high. There are many known reasons why start-ups fail, but a critical factor is the personal leadership ability of the entrepreneurial CEO. Conventional wisdom states that professional managers should replace founders because they customarily do not have the necessary leadership skills and experience to further the continued growth of the organization. Although conventional wisdom states that professional managers should replace founders, recent studies suggest that founders have the necessary the leadership skills and experience to further the continued growth of the organization. Therefore, this investigation analyzed the experiences of entrepreneurial CEOs who have defied conventional wisdom by successfully leading their organization from a startup to a professionally managed enterprise.; Twenty-seven entrepreneurial CEO's from high-technology firms were interviewed using the semi-structured interview method. Guided by the FourSquare Model of Firm Competitiveness, entrepreneurial CEOs responded to a series of questions that discussed their experience as founder and entrepreneurial leader in the following four performance subsystems: operations, finance, marketing, and human resources.; This study confirmed the legitimacy of a simplified two-phase Entrepreneurial Leadership Model. In the first phase, the Formative Growth Phase, the firm thrives on spontaneity, free-spirit, and informal communication. In the second phase, the Institutional Growth Phase, the organization is characterized by efficient operation of tasks, scheduled meetings, and the creation of policies and procedures. The leader is concerned with the firm's long-term sustainability in the marketplace while still advocating the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit that made it successful in the first place. The transition between the two phases is critical to the long-term success of the entrepreneur's new venture, and therefore, the leader must acquire new Entrepreneurial Leadership Competencies. Based on the analysis, Entrepreneurial Leadership Competencies are comprised of two sets of competencies, known as Functional Competencies and Self Competencies. This study is one of the first theory driven investigations of leadership success in the information age economy, and promises to be of interest to aspiring entrepreneurs, professional managers, and venture capitalists. |
