This article offers a novel theoretical conception about processes of entrepreneurial leadership in the emergence of a new small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) venture. It draws on shifts in relational connections among venture participants to conceptualize entrepreneurial leadership through processes of creativity and direction. These processes demonstrate that the co-action of venture participants makes up entrepreneurial leadership and drives the new venture forward. This allows to understand the emergence of a new venture from a lived perspective, flowing from relational processes under which the establishment of the organization is (re)constructed relationally and is made eligible to participants in its narrow and broader societal surroundings.