Innovative Leadership and Venture Performance in the Hospitality Industry in Rivers State, Nigeria

The study investigated the relationship between innovative leadership and venture performance in some selected hotels in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. The objective of the study was to examine the relationship between the dimension of innovative leadership (idea creation) with three measures of venture performance;   financial performance, non- financial performance and market performance respectively. The population of the study consisted of 675 male and female members of staff of some selected hotels in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, which included both senior and junior staff of firms. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaires. A total of 240 questionnaires were retrieved and analysed. Spearman’s Rank Correlation Statistical tool with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) were used to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that there is a significant relationship between idea creation and financial performance, non-financial performance and marketing performance of hotels in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State. The study therefore concluded that the innovative leader should make sure to have as many ideas under development as grains of sand in the desert, in order to ensure that some of the ideas reach the market as innovations. The innovative leader should also reduce the time from idea to invoice, and increase the “payback” in the realization phase.It was thus recommended that innovative leadership should take control over the whole process, from idea generation to commercialization and realization. However, they are expected to employ different external actors in various parts of the process as they take control