Starting a business requires a lot of hard work. Anyone who tells you it’s not is either lying or has never actually started one themselves. The hours are long, sacrifices are great and you are assaulted with new problems and challenges every day with seemingly no end. If you don’t have the constitution to weather these things, your business could implode on you faster than it started.
First of all, let’s discuss what entrepreneurial traits is all about.
What are entrepreneurial traits?
Entrepreneurial traits are the typical characteristics, abilities, and thought patterns associated with successful entrepreneurs. While some entrepreneurs are born with these traits, others can develop them.
Therefore, in this article, we discuss the 4 key traits that every entrepreneur should develop for success.
1. Strong leadership qualities: Leaders are born, not made. Do you find yourself being the go-to person most of the time? Do you find people asking your opinion or to help guide or make decisions for them? Have you been in management roles throughout your career?
A leader is someone who values the goal over any unpleasantness the work it takes to get there may bring. But a leader is more than just tenacious. A leader has strong communication skills and the ability to amass a team of people toward a common goal in a way that the entire team is motivated and works effectively to get there as a team.
A leader earns the trust and respect of his team by demonstrating positive work qualities and confidence, then fostering an environment that proliferates these values through the team. A leader who nobody will follow is not a leader of anything at all.
2. Serial innovators: entrepreneurs are almost defined by their drive to constantly develop new ideas and improve on existing processes. In fact, that’s how most of them got into the business. Successful people welcome change and often depend on it to improve their effectiveness as leaders and ultimately the success of their businesses as many business concepts rely on improving products, services, and processes in order to win business.
3. Deep passion: Work ethic and passion go hand in hand. It takes work ethic to keep the business strong, and it takes passion to feel motivated enough to maintain a good worth ethic. I believe passion is easily the most significant personality trait any successful entrepreneur has, and for obvious reasons. They’re successful because they choose to do what they love. The feeling of success is priceless, and it’s how entrepreneurs feel when they see great outcomes from the effort they put into their work.
4. Risk-taker: The ability to take a calculated risk is one of the most valuable skills an entrepreneur can have. When business owners are willing to take risks, they are able to learn valuable lessons in business that can help their company in the long run.
Taking risks also helps businesses find new ways to differentiate themselves from the competition, which is especially helpful in saturated markets. In the event the risk doesn’t have the intended result, the entrepreneur can still apply the valuable lessons learned to future business decisions.
According to Bill Gates, “to win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.” He certainly took risks throughout the history of Microsoft, but perhaps his most notable risk was leaving Harvard during his sophomore year in 1975 to found the company. His vision was “a computer on every desk and in every home,” which was something no one could have conceived of at the time. The risk he took to make that vision a reality paid off, and Microsoft is worth more than a Harvard degree.
