Abstract:

Small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) are important to the development of Malaysia’s economy and to realize the objectives of NEM. However, in order to achieve higher performance in this region the SME leaders need to be global, regional, and domestic savvy. Global leadership competencies are seen as those universal qualities that enable individuals to perform their job outside their own national as well as organizational culture, no matter what their educational or ethnical background is, what functional area their job description represents, or what organization they come from. Although the need to develop leaders with adequate competencies has become obvious in recent years, there is still a significant gap between the international human resource requirements of global strategies and their realization. Thus, this forms the motivation of the study to fill the gap; in that, understand the impact of the global leadership competencies on the relationship between leadership competencies and organizational performance. In light of this, this study will be focused on examining if the global leadership competencies of small medium entrepreneurs in Malaysia, moderates the relationship between leadership competencies and organizational performance, and providing recommendations for leadership educators aiming to meet the urgent need of preparing leaders to serve well in the face of globalization.