This study investigates how leadership qualities; proxied by education, entrepreneurial experience, and proactive decision-making; shape the performance and resilience of household enterprises in Ghana. Using panel data from the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey (2009–2019), we examine how access to finance, exposure to economic shocks, and spatial context moderate these relationships. Fixed-effects and logistic regression models reveal that education and experience enhance profitability, while proactivity supports survival in specific contexts. Credit access demonstrates conditional effects: susu strengthens the benefits of education, informal credit supports survival but dampens leadership advantages, and digital loans yield inconsistent outcomes. Shocks weaken profitability but not survival, with experienced entrepreneurs showing adaptive capacity. Urban enterprises survive more often, yet proactive strategies in competitive urban markets yield limited returns. These findings highlight the conditional nature of leadership and underscore the need for context-sensitive, shock-responsive, and spatially differentiated enterprise support.