Define a Successful Entrepreneur! Come on, try!

How difficult can it be to define a successful entrepreneur? You open your browser; you start googling successful business people and you start looking for common characteristics. Is it their knowledge that makes them successful? Or maybe your teamwork skills? What about the influence of your parents? Luck? You will soon realize that anything you can see on the surface can be complemented by other attributes that are not easy to discover.

Many writers have spent their time defining the perfect skills and characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. Some have managed to point out specific skills, others simply wonder around each of them, comparing and determining others to play with the question: What defines a successful entrepreneur? The answer to this question became even more important after the results of the Dun & Bradstreet study published in 1977 which showed that 50% of all new businesses fail within the first 5 years of operations, and only 20% are still alive. in his 11th year. . What all writers have come to realize through their studies and discussions is that they have all seen entrepreneurs, but no one can be sure of their characteristics.

Some characteristics that successful entrepreneurs have been found to have are an intense need for achievement for themselves or their families, an internal locus of control, a need for independence, and/or strong leadership. But are these characteristics the keys to business success? The need for achievement creates motivation, which in turn creates the willingness to work harder and longer hours and produce positive, high-quality results for the organization in which they are employed. Many studies that attempted to prove the link between the need for personal achievement and entrepreneurial skills have come under attack in recent years because this characteristic does not differentiate between motivated employers and employees. By asserting that entrepreneurs are defined by an intense need for personal achievement, these studies implied that hard-working employees are also entrepreneurs.

What about the locus of control? The locus of control concept was first introduced by Julian Rotter in 1966. Studies to define entrepreneurial skills singled out internal locus of control as another characteristic of successful entrepreneurs. People with internal locus of control believe they control their destiny and, by implication, the success of their newly formed business. Internal locus of control is a necessary skill of a successful entrepreneur; however, a successful entrepreneur must have other skills that can complement the belief that the success of the business depends on itself.

Independence and leadership are attributes that the literature recognizes as necessary characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. Independence translates into innovation, from the development stage of the business idea to the business management stage to achieve the desired success. Hand in hand with independence, effective leadership fosters teamwork and achieves the results a company needs to succeed. Correlating with the internal locus of control, a successful entrepreneur believes that it is up to them to develop a successful business idea, turn it into an opportunity, and capitalize on it by effectively managing a team made up of experts in their fields. .

As you probably already realized, these skills complement each other, but even when combined, they are not enough for entrepreneurs and their companies to succeed. The intense need for achievement is an important ingredient of the personality of a successful entrepreneur, but combined with independence and leadership it creates motivation and drives the entrepreneur to educate himself and be prepared to plan the business properly and comprehensively. Other factors that drive a successful career as an entrepreneur include parental influence, life experience, education, and career changes. But I will talk about these factors in a later article.

Daniela Pavel graduated from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania and Fayetteville State University’s Master of Business Administration Program. She is currently enrolled in the Master of Entrepreneurship Program at Western Carolina University. Webmasters and other publishers of articles are granted permission to reproduce the article as long as this article in its entirety, author information, and any links remain intact.

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