INFLUENCE OF LEADERSHIP STYLES OF BANKERS IN DECISION MAKING ON LOANS TO START-UP ENTREPRENEURS

Availability of bank financing has been a matter of serious concern for start-up enterprises. Various reasons for non-availability of bank financing by these entities have been studied in the past; however, the role of bankers' leadership styles has not been explored well. Although leadership in the banking sector is well researched, studies on influence of leadership styles in decisions made by bankers on providing loans to start-up entrepreneurs are non-existent. Therefore, the objective of this study is to find out if three leadership styles - i.e. transformational, transactional and laissez-faire - influence bankers while they make a decision on providing a loan to a start-up entrepreneur. The findings of this paper indicate that, out of three leadership styles, transformational leadership style has a significant influence on decisions made by bankers on loans to start-up entrepreneurs while transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles did not have a significant influence on bankers.