Today’s business world requires workplaces and its people to adopt and adapt to change very quickly. It is a turbulent environment and employees in general and leaders in particular need to have a clear vision, passion fueled attitude, resilience, business acumen and great interpersonal skills to name a few traits. These traits or characteristics are not too different from the common traits observed in successful entrepreneurs. At this point, I have a hypothesis if you will, that organizational leaders need to have the entrepreneurial mindset.
Are they similar?
When we talk about an entrepreneur, we often refer to the individual who has a vision, starts a business venture, organizes resources, bears risk and reaps rewards. This is a simplistic explanation of an entrepreneur and the process of starting and organizing a business venture is called entrepreneurship.
According to Peter Drucker: An entrepreneur searches for change, responds to it and exploits opportunities. Innovation is a specific tool of an entrepreneur, hence an effective entrepreneur converts a source into a resource. A leader is similar to an entrepreneur.
A good leader constantly scans the business environment, searches for where the leader’s organization and people can make a difference, pursues that opportunity and if necessary innovates and invents a solution to the business problem identified. An entrepreneur is similar to an organizational leader having to organize and allocate human resources, funds and continuously generate and re-generate ideas.
Entrepreneurs and leaders therefore share many characteristics. A leader often needs to have an entrepreneurial mindset. It’s all about how you think!
Aarti Iyer is a Sydneysider who originally hails from Mumbai, India. She has a Masters Degree in Human Resources Management from the University of Sydney,speaks fluent French and is currently working towards her doctorate in Leadership. She is passionate about writing and author of the book “The Story of a Girl, 60Se ...
