Traits of an Entrepreneur and Career Development

9 min readMay 27, 2021

Hello everyone!!!

In this article, I tell you about entrepreneurship and the traits of a successful entrepreneur, leadership, outstanding vs standing out, the ‘I’ ‘T’ personality, and the 5 dysfunctions of a team.

What Is an Entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards. The process of setting up a business is known as entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services, and business/or procedures.

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy, using the skills and initiative necessary to anticipate needs and bringing good new ideas to market. Entrepreneurship that proves to be successful in taking on the risks of creating a startup is rewarded with profits, fame, and continued growth opportunities. Entrepreneurship that fails results in losses and less prevalence in the markets for those involved.

Traits of an Entrepreneur

1.Vision

Successful entrepreneurs have a clear vision of what their business will be and can concisely articulate its purpose, goals, and market position. They have identified (and can succinctly describe) the who, what, where, when, and why of their business.

2. Passion

A successful entrepreneur is passionate about their business. It is hard work, and putting in long hours will be tough if you don’t love what you are doing. People with passion know what it is that drives them to keep working to achieve their vision.

3. Tenacity

Entrepreneurs remain tough when the going gets rough. They don’t give up easily. They can accept rejection and are willing to learn from their mistakes. They are willing and able to adapt and modify their plan in order to be successful the next time around.

4. Willingness to work hard

Being an entrepreneur is harder than being an employee. To be successful, the entrepreneur must be willing to put in the time and effort required, often for little or no pay at the beginning. Successful entrepreneurs recognize the risk and necessary work that achieving their goals will entail.

5. Confidence

Successful entrepreneurs have confidence in themselves and in their businesses. They must believe in their ability and in their idea. Every entrepreneur will face rejection along the way and successful entrepreneurs are those with the confidence to keep going and bounce back after a setback.

6. Flexibility

Things do not always go as planned. A successful entrepreneur is flexible. They learn from their mistakes and are willing to adapt and change as they go along. They take advice from others and are open to trying new approaches.

7. Can sell

An entrepreneur must be comfortable selling. Even with a sales team, the leader must be an expert at networking and be able to promote themselves and their business to bankers, customers, suppliers, and staff.

8. Prudent with money

Successful entrepreneurs are good money managers. They prudently invest in overhead and always keep track of the money and manage their cash flow.

9. Willing to ask for and accept help

An entrepreneur needs to be a jack of all trades but the most successful entrepreneurs know their limitations, realize they can’t do everything, and are willing to delegate to others. They are willing to ask for help. They seek out and pay for expert advice when needed.

10. Resilience

No matter how successful your business, there will be bumps along the road. A successful entrepreneur is resilient and can bounce back from a setback. They use setbacks as an opportunity to learn and grow. They understand that failure is part of the game.

Some Tips from the legends

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
-Steve Jobs-
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.”
-Henry Ford-
“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”
-Mark Zuckerberg-
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
-Bill Gates-
“My goal is to simplify complexity. I just want to build stuff that really simplifies our base human interaction.”
-Jack Dorsey-

Definitions about leadership

Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal. In a business setting, this can mean directing workers and colleagues with a strategy to meet the company’s needs.

“Successful leadership is leading with the heart, not just the head. They possess qualities like empathy, compassion, and courage.”
-Bill Geoage, Professor at Harvard business school-
“Leadership occurs when one person induces others to work toward some predetermined objectives.”
-Massie-
“The ultimate test of practical leadership is the realization of intended, real chance that meets people’s enduring needs.”
-James MacGregor Burns-
“Leadership is influence- nothing more, nothing less.”
-John Maxwell-

Traits that about leadership

1.Honesty and Integrity

Leaders with integrity is not afraid to face the truth. … It is perhaps the most important principle of leadership and dependent on integrity because it demands truthfulness and honesty. Many companies and organizations fail because they don’t follow the reality principle.

Dwight.D.Eisenhower — “The supreme quality of leadership is unquestionable integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”

2.Confidence

Self-confidence is necessary for leaders to take risks and accomplish high goals. Leadership involves influencing others and self-confidence allows the leader to feel assured that his or her attempts to influence are appropriate and right. Self-confidence requires a positive self-image.

Douglas McArthur — “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.”

3.Inspire Others

The leader’s behavior must inspire employees to act in the same way. Communication, integrity, inclusion, and sensitivity to the needs of the employees round out the qualities and characteristics of an inspirational leader. No one is inspired by a leader who people think does not care about them.

John Quincy Adams — “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

4.Commitment and Passion

Passion elevates productivity and ensures employee commitment to your vision. Passion eventually leads to mastery and success, in large part because you are always thinking and working on the thing you are passionate about. Most successful leaders do not have a job — they have a passion.

5.Good Communicator

Being a good listener and paying attention to nonverbal cues are among the key traits of any good communicator. Strong communication skills are a must for any leader, whether they are needed to manage employees, voice expectations, and assign tasks, or convince potential investors or partners to back an organization.

6.Decision-Making Capabilities

Decision-making is the key skill in the workplace and very important for leaders. It is also important every day in your personal life. Decision-making is a critical skill for effective management and leadership. Some people are just not suited to leadership roles because of their lack of ability to make decisions.

7.Accountability

Accountability eliminates the time and effort you spend on distracting activities and other unproductive behavior. When you make people accountable for their actions, you’re effectively teaching them to value their work. When done right, accountability can increase your team members’ skills and confidence.

Arnold H Glasow — “A good leader takes little more than his share of the blame and little less than his share the credit.”

8.Delegation and Empowerment

Delegation and empowerment are both effective tools for effective leadership, however, used for different business situations. In other words, empowerment is allowing employees to act on their own behalf and delegation on the other hand, is giving enough lead for them to act on your behalf as their manager.

9.Creativity and Innovation

Creativity is one of the most important characteristics of an effective leader and fosters a successful and healthy workplace environment. Creativity opens opportunities in problem-solving, achieving goals, and inspiring teams to be creative and find unlikely perspectives. Innovative Leaders Have a Vision of the Future, looking not just for immediate success but also at long-term goals. Innovative Leaders Establish Trust in their employees, which will be reflected in themselves. Employees who trust leadership are more likely to think of alternative ways to conduct their business.

Steve Jobs — “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

10.Empathy

It encourages leaders to understand the root cause behind poor performance. Being empathetic allows leaders to help struggling employees improve and excel. Empathy allows leaders to build and develop relationships with those they lead.

Outstanding and Standing Out

The difference between outstanding and standout; is that outstanding is prominent or noticeable; standing out from others while standout is exceptional, noteworthy.

Differences between being Outstanding and Standing Out

Outstanding

· Good Communication skills
· Strong work ethics
· Teamwork skills (work well with others)
· Initiative Skills
· Flexibility / Adaptability
· Relates well to others.
· Problem solving skills Technical skills.

Standing Out

· Communicates across roles and layers.
· See the connections.
· Have a strong network.
· Know how to influence.
· Solve other’s problems.
· Unique skill set
· Know more, share more.
· Focus on strengths of yours and others Sharpen the skills that are in demand.

The ‘I’ ‘T’ personality

This is about a personality one should have in the modern industry. The letter ‘I’ shows the ‘Depth of Skills’ that an individual has. The letter ‘T’ shows the ‘Depth of Skills’ and ‘Breadth of Understanding’ that an individual has. Then what does it means? The letter ‘I’ shows the traditional way of thinking and it is the old world. ’T’ is the new world. In the old world, we were looking at who has a better technical skill at one thing. But in the modern world, we look for an individual who has a piece of deep knowledge about one skill, but also, he should have an understanding, knowledge of other things so if required they can do a little bit in those areas too.

The five dysfunctions of a team

1. Lack of trust

The root cause of lack of trust lies with team members being unable to be vulnerable and open with one another. This is a huge waste of time and energy, as team members invest in defensive behavior instead, and are reluctant to ask for help from or assist each other.

2. Fear of conflict

Teams that are lacking trust are incapable of having an unfiltered, passionate debate about things that matter, causing team members to avoid conflict, replacing it with an artificial harmony.

3. Lack of commitment

Without conflict, it is not easy for team members to commit and buy-in to decisions, resulting in an environment where ambiguity prevails.

4. Avoidance of accountability

When teams don’t commit, you can’t have accountability: “people aren’t going to hold each other accountable if they haven’t clearly bought into the plan”.

5. Inattention to results

A team can only become results-oriented when all team members place the team’s results first. When individuals aren’t held accountable, team members naturally tend to look out for their own interests, rather than the interests of the team.