The entrepreneurial leader

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What vision is to leadership is what innovation is to entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial leader is one who is able to leverage vision and innovation to bring about a transformation through innovation. There is leadership in entrepreneurship and vice versa. Innovation alone is not capable of transforming societies and economies; transformation takes place when entrepreneurial leaders first envision possibilities before applying creative solutions to problems and opportunities to enhance or to enrich people’s lives

In the TV series, “The men who built America” (also known as “The Innovators”) Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford are names synonymous with innovation and big businesses in America. They all built empires and created advances in technology. They helped shape the country in its early days by doing things such as developing the models for modern railroads, creating the modern financial system and making cars accessible to the masses. One thing that is apparently common to these great and successful entrepreneurs is that, beyond the entrepreneurial initiatives and creativity, they all had a compelling vision coupled with purpose-driven leadership on how their plans would be sustainably and profitably executed. They were both starters (creators) and “shatterers” (disruptors) at the same time. They started out with a vision and continued to prune using the process of shattering the status quo and disrupting the norm.

Vision and innovation are like Siamese twins which must not be separated. While an entrepreneur is able to set the pace through vision, he is able as well, to reset the space through innovation. While vision is the function of leadership, innovation is the function of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a function of the entrepreneur, E = f (e). Entrepreneurship is as the entrepreneur thinks, sees, acts, leads, plans, takes risks, etc. Entrepreneurship is a calling. The entrepreneurial leader is one who understands that creativity or innovation is not enough for entrepreneurial undertakings, but is largely driven by a clear vision, knowledge and energy. Success in entrepreneurship is not necessarily a function of nationality; it is most definitely a product of the intentionality of the entrepreneur! All entrepreneurial leaders are known for creativity/innovation, as well as intentionality/implementation. Ideas don’t actually rule the world, vision and innovation do!

Entrepreneurship is not just a display of genius or acumen; it goes beyond innovation and value creation. Entrepreneurship is a calling, a discipline, a liberating and lucrative career that requires a clear vision, a strong passion as well as raw intellectual horsepower for tangible and visible expression in form of economic and societal transformation. The focus of this write up is to put into proper perspective the subject of entrepreneurship with respect to the place of visionary leadership as well as entrepreneurial creativity as its fulcrum. Rather than seeing an entrepreneur as a “free style” risk taker or a serial innovator, or even a mere talented individual with extraordinary brilliance, an entrepreneur is to be seen as a pioneer of organization as well as an engineer of innovation. An entrepreneur is a visionary innovator; a thinking leader. An entrepreneur is a starter and a “shatterer” at the same time, organizing and re-organizing from time to time. Entrepreneurship is not just about products and services that sell, it is about processes and systems that work. Entrepreneurs are producers with reproducible procedures. Sustainable and profitable models are products of leadership (vision) and entrepreneurship (innovation) respectively. I call it ‘innovision’.

WHO CAN BECOME AN ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADER?

There is no one definitive profile for an entrepreneurial leader. They come in various ages, income levels, gender, and race. They differ in education and experience. However, research indicates that most successful entrepreneurial leaders share certain personal attributes, including: creativity, dedication, determination, flexibility, leadership, passion, self-confidence, and “smarts.”

CREATIVITY: This is the spark that drives the development of new products or services or ways to do business. It is the push for innovation and improvement. It is continuous learning, questioning, and thinking outside of prescribed formulas.

DEDICATION: This is what motivates the entrepreneur to work hard, 12 hours a day or more, even seven days a week, especially in the beginning, to get the endeavor off the ground. Planning and ideas must be joined by hard work to succeed. Dedication makes it happen.

DETERMINATION: This is the extremely strong desire to achieve success. It includes persistence and the ability to bounce back after rough times. It persuades the entrepreneur to make the 10 phone call, after nine have yielded nothing. For the entrepreneur, money is not the motivation. Success is the motivator; money is the reward.

FLEXIBILITY: This is the ability to move quickly in response to changing market needs. It is being true to a dream while also being mindful of market realities. A story is told about an entrepreneur who started a fancy shop selling only French pastries but customers wanted to buy muffins as well. Rather than risking the loss of these customers, the entrepreneur modified her vision to accommodate these needs.

LEADERSHIP: This is the ability to create rules and to set goals. It is the capacity to follow through to see that rules are followed and goals are accomplished.

PASSION: This is what gets entrepreneurs started and keeps them going. It gives entrepreneurs the ability to convince others to believe in their vision. It can’t substitute for planning, but it will help them to stay focused and to get others to look at their plans.

SELF-CONFIDENCE: It comes from thorough planning, which reduces uncertainty and the level of risk. It also comes from expertise. Self-confidence gives the entrepreneur the ability to listen without being easily swayed or intimidated.

“SMARTS”: This consists of common sense joined with knowledge or experience in a related business or endeavor. The former gives a person good instinct, the latter, expertise. Many people have “smarts” they don’t recognize. A person who successfully keeps a household on a budget has organizational and financial skills. Employment, education, and life experiences all contribute to “smarts”. Every entrepreneur has these qualities in different degrees. But what if a person lacks one or more? Many skills can be learned. Someone can be hired who has strengths that the entrepreneur lacks. The most important strategy is to be aware of strengths and to build on them.

HOW ENTREPRENURIAL LEADERS ACT

An entrepreneurial leader explores a business opportunity with the instrumentality of vision, combining insight with foresight and hindsight.
An entrepreneurial leader expands the scope of the opportunity with the instrumentality of innovation having run the acid tests of relevance, usefulness and necessity.
An entrepreneurial leader exploits the opportunity and take advantage of it by swinging into action, leveraging the factors of production namely land, labour and capital.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw

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