Xenophobia raises operational risk and emotional load; we link exposures to measurable stress patterns and leadership responses in the sample. The chapter argues that entrepreneurial influence in South Africa depends less on formal authority than on persuasion, emotional labor, and coalition-building amid xenophobia and institutional constraints. Using survey and interview evidence, we identify recurrent stressors (time poverty, strategic isolation, crime exposure and moral injury, gendered burdens, identity/visibility) and show how leaders convert coping into transformational behaviors that mobilize trust and resources. We integrate transformational leadership, emotional labor, stress and coping, social/cultural capital, and counterpublics to explain outcomes, concluding with implications for local government, finance, and higher education. In sum, persuasion under constraint—not formal authority alone—explains how migrant founders convert stress into mobilizing leadership and cooperation across firms and communities.