Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Organizational Leadership

First Advisor

Philip Pendley

Second Advisor

Carlos Guzman

Third Advisor

Cheryl-Marie Osborne

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how Nigerian SME leaders interpret and apply leadership strategies to manage crises and build organizational resilience in volatile environments. The study focused on key dimensions of leadership, including strategic crisis navigation and vulnerability assessment, organizational resilience, contextual leadership, experiential learning and innovation, and organizational sustainability.

Methodology: This study employed a qualitative phenomenological research design to examine the lived experiences of Nigerian SME leaders who had navigated significant organizational crises. Participants were purposefully selected based on their direct experience managing disruptions that affected their businesses. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns and meanings among participants’ experiences. The analysis examined how leaders interpreted crises, adapted leadership practices, and mobilized organizational resources under conditions of uncertainty.

Findings: An analysis of interviews with 11 Nigerian SME leaders revealed that crisis leadership was characterized by continual strategic adaptation, active resilience-building, contextually grounded decision making, experiential learning, and future-oriented planning. Repeated crisis exposure strengthened leaders’ adaptive capacity and informed innovation and preparedness. Unexpected findings revealed that business formalization could function as both an opportunity and a liability, business spaces could provide socioemotional support during crises, faith functioned as a leadership resource, and community relationships involved reciprocal systems of support and social obligation.

Conclusions: The study concludes that repeated crisis exposure can function as an ongoing mechanism of leadership development, as leaders convert lived experience into practical knowledge and adaptive capacity. Organizational resilience among Nigerian SMEs may also be understood as a leadership-enacted process in which leaders continually interpret changing conditions and mobilize and reconfigure limited resources, relationships, and experience to sustain operations during persistent disruption.

Recommendations: Nigerian SME leaders should strengthen adaptive systems, diversify resources and relational networks, strategically evaluate business formalization, and convert previous crisis experiences into organizational learning. Policymakers should reduce regulatory and structural barriers, improve access to financing and infrastructure, and strengthen crisis-related SME support, while business support organizations should integrate experiential, relational, and contextually grounded approaches into leadership development. Future research should examine relational and informal support systems, the psychological dimensions of crisis leadership, business formalization, organizational size, diaspora engagement, gender, and comparative crisis leadership across emerging economies.

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