Following are some of the essential qualities and traits that help an entrepreneur successful in his venture.
At a personal level and as an individual he should be a:
- Dreamer: Should dream about the big picture to become an established entrepreneur, creator of employment, if possible creator of a change through his innovation. Whether he goes walking to achieve it or goes leaping, it is all contextual and situational. He may approach either way. But without the dream for a big picture he will not be able to scale-up his activity and end up in smaller returns. His dreams should always surround on the common benefits to his stakeholders without being self-centered.
- Committed: This is the foremost trait that makes him achieve things without being defocused or deviated.
- Leader: Should be able to lead people, understand the means to achieve collective productivity, and achieve collective growth. Should believe in empowerment and accord individual freedom to the team who are rightly identified and aligned to the cause of the organization. As a leader it would be his first responsibility to reach to the core issues of his team with clarity and without holding any inhibitions. I call my team as Human Intellect to denote the value they extend to the venture. For me, they are not Human Resources or Human Capital.
- Hardworking: Devoting focused mind and time to the needs of business. It could be coordination, review, CRM, performance measurement or any day-to-day activities, he should not go procrastinating things.
- Sincere: His expressions, his admissions, his assurances and his promises to stakeholders should be made with sincere mind followed by the required actions.
- Honest: This helps him in reaching right message to his team and other stakeholders without leaving higher aspirations or expectations.
- Integrate: Integrity is an all-time requirement. This is the foundation to achieve stakeholders’ acceptance.
To be relevant to his entrepreneurship, he should be:
- A Visionary: Visionary is the person who is able to see virtually what he is going to do, where he is going to reach in his business. He could envision to be a change maker to a key player in his chosen business area or so. He is like a talented movie director who will have the imaginary view of his picture before he make it.
- Passionate: This will act like an accelerator when he slows down or when things look otherwise. He should ensure that he keeps his passion and temperament at required levels to run the show smooth.
- Ethical: Helps him in receiving continuing and compounding acceptance in the market.
- Innovator: Not a replicator or imitator. Innovation could be a for a new product, a new approach, a new strategy, a new presentation of his business. It is just a new way of attracting customers. Not that he should always be an Einstein.
- Planned: This is must as he will not know as to how he could reach his short-term and long-term goals to make his dreams real or achieve envisioned growth and goal.
- Comprehensive: Without being detailed it is not possible to have a right approach. It is always dangerous to stride into unknown paths without holding a map and with just knowing one straight route. Without being detailed he will not be able to comprehend the way out, should he get stuck somewhere in his business plan.
- Attentive: To his people, stakeholders, operations, performance, goals, growth, profits, and his personal growth. Comprehensiveness without being attentive later for required review, correction and monitoring will not help him in true sense.
- Team oriented: This goes without saying that he should view every thing from his teams’ perspective before he reach his other stakeholders. Not that he listens them without caring his goals. He should motivate them, empower them, align them, and let them enjoy the fruits of growth. He should be emotional, empathetic and realistic in managing the team for collective productivity and common goal.
- Collaborative: The world itself is a collaborative entity. No single entrepreneur will be able to do every thing on his own. He should never feel about loosing control of his business through collaborations. Strategic alignment of collaborations will help achieve the growth sooner than envisaged. Collaboration could be in the areas of technical expertise, marketing, branding, team sharing, research sharing or expansion to new markets and so..
- Service conscious: There is no business where there is no effective service delivery. This is the core thing to sustain and grow.
- Quality conscious: There is no point of reaching customer where we can’t deliver the quality at first instance. Quality should be the core of product, service or whatever business we are engaged in. Quality compromise leads to every other failures in course of time.
- Sportive: To the feed back, to the feelings of team, stakeholders and to the market dynamics. Nothing and never is addressed some thing personal to an entrepreneur unless he goes himself unethical in his approach.
- Resilient: To every thing even to failure. Why? Without this you will be left with only an exit path at times. Temporary setbacks are common in business, market recession, aggressive competition, product failure, team related issues, insufficient cash flows ….. many more things including the personal problems. Unless an entrepreneur reminds himself his Dream and Vision, he would not be able to address the temporary setbacks. There is no business that doesn’t suffer setbacks. This is a very common phenomena.
- Professional: In every aspect. In his approach, communication, systems, processes, service delivery, customer support. Being professional is just meeting the required elements in every context with transparency, speed, commitment, and integrity.
- Social: Man is a social animal. Entrepreneur is a socially wild-animal. He should be more visible. He should be more reachable. He should be more vigorous in creating his network, maintaining his network and satisfying his stakeholders not as an entrepreneur but like a friendly family member.
- Flexible to change: Could be any change. Technology, product portfolio, role, marketing…. Should be decisive in accepting and implementing the change. Otherwise an important change that occurs late will not bring in envisaged results.
- Welfare: Ensure proper growth prospects, welfare and well-being of employees. I personally prefer even to consider or counsel the employees about their post-exit sustenance wherever relevant.
- Empathetic, Philanthropic: An entrepreneur should integrally indicate his reciprocal approach to the society. It is a give-and-take policy. When you sustain on the society’s patronage, extend some thing back to the society out of what you achieve.
It is definitely possible that I have left certain aspects. Because as per me entrepreneurship is a lifetime effort. One must not take-up it with the motive ‘just profit-at-any-cost’. It is just unacceptable to the society.
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