It’s the era of entrepreneurs with more individuals quitting the conventional ‘9-5’ jobs in pursuit of fulfilling their dreams. However, most of these businesses fail within the first five years since their inception. Here are two examples to consider:
You may have a brilliant idea for a product or service and maybe even a strong business plan for execution. However, your startup won’t work unless you have the leadership qualities necessary to take your vision from a dream to reality.
The term ‘leadership’ comprises multiple roles, including motivating people, acting as role models, and serving as figureheads for their companies. Moreover, leadership isn’t just limited to your employees; you don’t even need employees to be a leader. If you’re running a business, you’re going to have to work with people, right from contractors, customers, clients and the marketplace in general. To carry out operations smoothly while collaborating with these people, you need to exhibit certain leadership qualities.
That being said, leadership qualities cannot be measured, tracked or reviewed accurately. For example, you can’t take an exam and say you scored ‘98% in leadership.’ However, to effectively understand how to be a good leader, you can look at examples of successful entrepreneurs as they all share common qualities.
Here are some examples:
- Narayan Murthy displayed humility, despite being one of the most success and riches businessmen of all time by touching Ratan Tata’s feet
- Azim Premji became the world’s greatest philanthropist as he donated $21 billion to his education-focused charitable arm
- Rovio faced 51 failures before launching Angry Birds, which became a legacy in the gaming world
Based on these great legends, we have compiled a list of the top ten qualities that we believe every entrepreneur should have to be successful.
Top 10 Qualities of an Entrepreneur
1) Passion
Another important characteristic of leaders is to be passionate. There is no denying they are passionate about what they are doing when you look at accomplished leaders and entrepreneurs. As a leader, your energy and excitement will drive your efforts, and your team, partners, and clients will take note. Passion is infectious, so if you’re naturally excited about your business, it’ll probably encourage the people around you too. Also, for many leaders, passion appears to translate into charisma, which helps them gain greater media attention. All this is without noting that it’s really more fun to build a company based on what you’re passionate about than building a company based on monetary opportunities alone.
2) Self-Discipline
“All success begins with self-discipline. It starts with you.” Dwayne Johnson
Although most of these characteristics concentrate on how entrepreneurs communicate with their setting, how strong leaders take care of themselves is also important to keep in mind. For instance, if you experience insomnia and make unhealthy eating decisions, your productivity will suffer, and you will not be able to lead as efficiently. The best entrepreneurial leaders recognise that success is vital to the wellbeing of their bodies and minds. Every day, they are able to spend a few extra hours having enough sleep, eating the correct foods, exercising, and reading new materials. A morning routine is used by many successful entrepreneurs to feel centered and to set the right mood for the day.
3) Listening Skills
Yes, this is your brain-child, it is your business, and you surely know what’s best. However, it’s highly recommended to listen to what others have to say. You are sure to learn many things that will help improve your startup venture. As the owner, you’re too vested in the company, and sometimes, an outside perspective is highly beneficial while taking decisions about the future of your company. So, listen to what the people around you, including investors, customers, team members, and even potential employees.
4) Problem solver
Regardless if you’re developing the ‘next big thing,’ or solving a payroll issue that’s taking up too much of your time, as an entrepreneur, you’re going to face problems daily. It would help if you found a way to solve these problems while running your entire company effectively. Hence, you must be able to apply creative problem-solving that entails you finding solutions to each of the problems, without investing too much of your own time.
5) Team manager
You cannot run the show alone. Even if you are a solopreneur, you still need to work with people and manage them to get your work done. Hence, to run a successful venture, you need to be a good judge of character and abilities to ensure you choose to work with the right people. Moreover, you should be able to manage them well to ensure your work is done correctly and on time. Also, if you’re running a team of people, you need to know how to effectively motivate your employees to ensure they are passionate about your company and improve the overall customer experience.
6) Positive approach
Having a positive approach is another great quality that you need to have as an entrepreneur. When running your own business, facing challenges and obstacles are a given; however, if you don’t have a positive approach, you might just shut shop without genuinely trying. This is why staying positive and driven, even in tough times, is essential.
7) Fast Decision maker
As a leader, making choices will be one of your greatest responsibilities. You won’t always make the “right” choices, and there won’t be a “right” decision to make often. Yet you’ll be the one who makes it when a decision has to be taken, and you’ll also be the one to witness the consequences and be kept responsible for them. You won’t do well when difficult circumstances need decisive action if you procrastinate on decision-making, or if you choose to delegate hard choices to other individuals.
Related – 6 Leadership Qualities To Learn From Narendra Modi
8) Humility
Humility is important for budding entrepreneurs because it keeps them grounded and closer to reality. For example, if you believe you’re too good for your competition, you’ll never keep track of their activities. Soon, they’ll overtake you, and you will be too ignorant to notice it. Hence, humility is essential for an entrepreneur.
9) Good negotiator
You need to be able to strike a balance to get what you want and at what cost you want it to ensure you can progress at a good rate. Hence, you need to be a good negotiator so you can get your work done without giving more than necessary in return.
10) Opportunistic
A good leader will always have one eye, if not both eyes, looking into the future. On every problem, they think a few steps ahead and always look for new opportunities for growth. For various reasons, this future-focused mentality is useful. Instead of choosing the simpler or faster path, these entrepreneurs are willing to make compromises for a brighter long-term future, for instance, it reduces the desire for immediate gratification. Rather than relying on patchwork solutions, which are often unreliable and unsustainable, they are often more likely to implement long-term solutions to issues. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for instance, is infamous for constantly reinvesting in the company, ignoring short-term profitability in favor of long-term growth channels.
Also Read – Top 14 Most Influential Entrepreneurs In The World
Conclusion
You could feel like it’s difficult to create a successful company if you don’t fit the mould of a leader as outlined above. The real lesson here, however, should not be an examination of whether you are actually fit for leadership or not, or even what skills you need to improve to become a leader. Instead, to assess your strengths and weaknesses, you should use this data as a reference. All leaders have weaknesses, but to solve them, good leaders strive to strengthen those weaknesses while exploiting their strengths. A good partner, employee, or mentor may mitigate any especially important weaknesses.
For more tips and tricks on how to be a successful entrepreneur, keep reading The Money Gig!
Related – A Complete Guide On Entrepreneurship
Also Read – List Of 15 Succesful Entrepreneurs of India
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