Why Entrepreneurial Leadership is a Very Useful Concept

Many moons ago, people traced back to the concept of entrepreneurial leadership. At that time, people would flock around a particular person to listen to his or her beliefs and sayings. They took inspiration from them and implemented the same in their lives.

A leader today, be it in any aspect of life—spiritual, professional, social, etc.—is somebody who people look up to and whose beliefs and ethics they choose to follow. It doesn’t have to be philosophical and can be advice given by a successful individual to others who idolize him or her. In a professional environment, it can be hierarchical. A senior advises his junior about how to go about things. The junior wants that piece of advice from him out of admiration.

But, when talking about leadership in a professional environment, it is important for an entrepreneur to be a good leader as well.

Who is an entrepreneur?

According to Investopedia, “an entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards.”. In other words, an entrepreneur is a goal-oriented person who takes financial risks to achieve a ‘profitable’ end result.

The percentage of successful entrepreneurs is quite small. According to a recent survey, at least 20% of new businesses fail within their first year. While 50% make it to their fifth year of existence,. This is a frightening number.

But wouldn’t everybody like to be a Mark Zuckerberg or a Bill Gates? Well, this article may help you understand what it takes to be successful.

To sustain, one must make the concept of “entrepreneurial leadership” his motto when starting a business.

There is a difference between an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial leadership. Entrepreneurial leadership is about developing certain characteristics in employees. These characteristics help the company run and help employees grow. It revolves around helping employees see the factor of “self, which means that they must be self-reliable. They should be able to self-reflect, develop, correct, and accept, which is the best way to help them grow.

Entrepreneurial leadership has three main principles:

• Cognitive Ambidexterity
• SEERS
• SSA

Cognitive Ambidexterity 

It is about prediction and creation logic and leans more towards the professional aspect of the concept of entrepreneurial leadership.

Prediction in this context refers to analyzing a situation given various data and statistics and predicting the end result.

Creation refers to acting upon a particular result or final analysis, which over time becomes better.

SEERS

It expands as Social, Environmental, Economic Responsibility and Sustainability. This impacts every business around the globe. Thus, every business owner must put in place strategies that impact these aspects in the best way possible. It is a responsibility that no one can run away from. For example, businesses dealing with chemicals or plastic should have a proper way and policy for discarding their waste. While disposing of them, it is important to give them importance. Do not treat them as regular, biodegradable garbage.

We should also consider equality among different sectors of society. This includes women and people of different races. Discrimination amongst employees depending on their gender or background shouldn’t be tolerated. Also, a good leader should set an example about the same. Even today, some companies pay women less than men for the same job. This undermines the concept of equality in the eyes of his team.

SSA

It is the abbreviation for Social and Self Awareness.

Self-appraisals every now and then conducted by team leads can benefit the team to a large extent. Since every individual working for the company will be forced to look into their own flaws and mistakes, they will be able to take the step of correction to a whole new level.

Apart from employees, the founder or entrepreneur should be more self-aware than everyone else. It’s important to mentally go over the tasks during your working hours to get an idea about a certain event. This helps in analyzing things in a better way to deal with them, which is preferable in the future.

For any entrepreneur to achieve success, entrepreneurial leadership is the key!