Today there is a huge variety of goods and services. Every year the number of enterprises around the world increase, and it seems that it’s impossible to come up with something new, and even more so to turn an idea into reality and create a product that will bring profits. However, there are people, who come up with incredible things and create entrepreneurship that is starting to grow rapidly. Creating an enterprise is a complex process that not everyone can do, but it’s more difficult to launch created company and to promote and distribute enterprise’s products and services throughout the country and even around the world.
To make an enterprise profitable and popular requires a lot of effort from the entrepreneur: he has to have a large supply of knowledge and skills, as well as constantly improve himself.
In order to understand what qualities an entrepreneur should possess, we need to make out what he does and what role he has in entreprise.
In modern society, the concept of “entrepreneur” has the following definition – a person who is engaged in entrepreneurial activity. But not everyone understands what is meant by entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurship is a type of economic activity carried out at one’s own risk and aimed at obtaining benefits from the sale of products, the provision of services or the performance of work. And all this is done with only one goal – making a profit. In view of the foregoing, it can be assumed that any citizen, who carries out any activity, receives money for it, is an entrepreneur.
But that’s not a truth. The essence of the entrepreneur is: to manage the enterprise or organization, to form the start-up capital; use the profit at his own discretion and make various decisions to increase profits or investment; bear full responsibility for the decisions made on doing enterprise and be prepared for further consequences and so on.
Therefore, we can conclude that the entrepreneur plays the most important role in enterprise. A lot of hard work goes into starting and eventually expanding an enterprise. This hard work starts with the entrepreneur and trickles down the entire organization. So, there are some points, what does the entrepreneur has to do in enterprise: he initiates the process of creating an enterprise by coming up with the idea for the business and planning out how to turn that idea into a reality, finds the capital to back up his idea, carries big risks in the case of the failure of his ideas, reduces the risk of company failure by bringing in people, shareholders or investors, who can help the organization grow. Also, entrepreneur has to allocate various resources in the organization, especially manpower: he is responsible for hiring an efficient staff to help him carry out his business. Furthermore, entrepreneur ensures that the enterprise adheres to legal norms and policies, such as obtaining a license, forecast changes in the business environment, prepare the organization to deal with these changes etc. An entrepreneur needs to work hard on himself to complete all these tasks, because it is impossible to be born with all the necessary skills. To create and promote his business, an entrepreneur has to possess theoretical knowledge, know how to apply this knowledge to develop enterprise. In addition, he needs to possess many personal characteristics that will help him to promote his own business, manage employees and calculate moves several steps forward.
The most important characteristics for an entrepreneur are creativity and resourcefulness. In the business world dreamers aren’t naive. They are able to invent new things and think outside the box, find a solution where ordinary people wouldn’t seek it. The ability to intuitively recognize a potentially successful idea is important in business, like nothing else: a good idea and a non-standard approach is the key to success. Plus to this, an entrepreneur, first of all, an innovator, who introduce new products, new technologies, new ways of organizing business, new forms of promoting goods on the market. In addition, the entrepreneur needs to be resourceful that is correctly assessed the problem and the situation that generated it, propose a solution to the problem and, as a rule, implement this solution. Also, to be resourceful means to be ready for changes, which happen in business, as in other areas of life. This is due to new inventions and scientific and technological developments. An entrepreneur should try new things, new to seek and find new ways to profit, solve assigned tasks and achieve goals. An entrepreneur is, first of all, an innovator, who introduces new products, new technologies, new ways of organizing business, new forms of promoting goods on the market.
Organizational skills are also important for a successful entrepreneur. Only a highly organized person can submit his life to a business idea, select qualified staff, find investments, and overcome all barriers to success. He is also responsible for creating an organizational structure and departments for a more efficient functioning of the enterprise. This is important because a good manager can take a business to new heights, while a bad manager can destroy the business. Organizational skills are of particular importance in the field of management. Not every organizer can be a leader, but every leader must be an organizer. Organizing the work of employees is one of the main functions of an entrepreneur, moreover, regardless of what management style he adheres to. Under the organization refers to the distribution of duties and tasks between members of the team. The success of all activities, the productivity of work, depends on how accurately an entrepreneur distributes work tasks. The distribution of power and responsibility, that is, for example, determining a leader, division a team into small groups, is also a part of the organizational function of an entrepreneur. But no matter how he distributes power and responsibility, only he is responsible for the result.
Therefore, the next qualities that an entrepreneur should have are responsibility and riskiness. First of all, an entrepreneur shouldn’t be afraid to make decisions and be responsible for them. After all, if an employee made a mistake, he can quit and that’s it. And an entrepreneur has nowhere to quit – he will have to solve all problems and correct mistakes himself, besides, he is responsible for everything with all his property. A real entrepreneur should take responsibility for himself before the state and other partners, including for his employees, and not transfer it to others. An entrepreneur has to think through everything to the smallest detail and be able to calculate risks. So an entrepreneur is the person who is accountable in the face of the failure of his idea. An entrepreneur undertakes risks or uncertainties for establishing any business or enterprise for implementing innovative activities. In this regard, Lawrence Lemant has said: “Propensity of risk-taking is the real trait of the entrepreneur”. A reward of the enterprise depends upon its success. If the enterprise is successful, then it will gain profits, otherwise losses. The reality is that in the period of starting and development of enterprise, the money is invested only by the entrepreneurs and the promoters. Public investment starts only when the enterprise reaches the stage of making production or start the actual production.
No less important is the possession of communication and leadership skills. The well-known word “leader” means the first, the one who goes ahead. This is a person, who leads a group of people, enjoys authority and influence, thanks to which he is able to manage this group. He is one of the members of the group, and she recognizes the right of the leader. Leaders can be authoritarian, democratic, and liberal. In my opinion, the most successful is considered a democratic leader. Democratic leaders make decisions based on the opinion of the team, and their power can be delegated to one of the group members. There are tasks of an entrepreneur as a leader: increasing labor productivity and enterprise development, motivation of employees for growth and improvement, creating conditions that reduce the reasons for employee discontent. An entrepreneur should value his employees, take care of them, be a mentor to them and strive to help them. He has to be humane, tolerant, considerate and attentive. Demanding maximum efficiency from employees and raising high bar, he shouldn’t scold them. If it’s necessary to criticize, he should criticize the work of the employee, but not him personally. At the same time, an entrepreneur shouldn’t show weakness and tell employees only what they want to hear. The leader has to be emotionally flexible and be able to find a common language with his employees, without giving vent to emotions. In turn, employees should be able to tell the leader that he is wrong. The well-known American billionaire John D. Rockefeller believed that “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun”. In addition to stimulating employees, the concept of sociability includes the communication skills for successful implementation of goods and services to consumers.
The next quality that a successful entrepreneur should have is self-improvement. Some entrepreneurs, having achieved significant success, calm down. Satisfaction with achievements is a danger that awaits many leaders. They believe that having influence and respect, there is no need to engage in further self-development. Professionalism is a self-growing quantity. The entrepreneur is called upon to be an example of increasing the level of his theoretical knowledge and practical skills, general cultural growth. It is extremely important to systematically demonstrate his good knowledge of the technology of intellectual self-expression in the development of managerial decisions. For example, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, is known as an incredibly fast learner person. Before starting the SpaceX project, as he told Esquire in an interview, Elon read and studied so much literature about rocket technology and power plants that he could build a rocket. When he participated in “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit, one of the users asked how he manages to process such volumes of information in such a short time. Elon replied: “It is important to view knowledge as sort of semantic tree. Make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.” Despite the success of PayPal and Tesla and the vast accumulated experience, Elon understood that he would have to gain new knowledge if he wanted to become a competent leader in the space industry company. Successful entrepreneurs always try to learn more. It is also important to understand that it doesn’t matter how successful an enreprenåur is now or how much he already know – there is always the opportunity to learn more and grow above himself, a successful entrepreneur has to apply something from many areas: economics, finance, management, law and so on.
Systemic thinking and forecasting is the basis of the personal qualities of a successful entrepreneur. In the process of practical activity, it is necessary to be able to think, to determine in advance possible difficulties and ways to overcome them. The skill of systemic thinking helps to cover all aspects of the matter and influencing factors. Systemic thinking is nothing more than a combination of analytical thinking and synthetical thinking. A systematic approach to management is a methodology that considers an organization as a system, i.e. as a whole, consisting of interconnected elements, and the general result depends on the correct organization of these elements. So systemic thinking helps to comprehend the complexity of processes and understand how to improve them, teaches the entrepreneur how to manage employees and direct team work towards achieving goals. Furthermore, an entrepreneur has to be ready for any changes, because he works in a business environment and it’s affected by changes occurring in various aspects of this environment. It could be internal, such as strikes, machinery breakdowns, budget cuts etc. or these could be external, such as legal policy changes, political or social unrest, technological advancements, etc. An entrepreneur has to be able to correctly forecast these changes and prepare the organization to deal with these changes. Or there can be another situation, which requires the ability to foresee: thanks to their curiosity, successful entrepreneurs find undeveloped niches in the market and, through innovation, make them a promising business. They create the whole world in their imagination and then immerse investors, customers and their employees in it. And after several years this business will be in demand. The main thing is always to go a few steps ahead of the market, in this case the enterprise develops and at the same time brings good profit.
To sum up, the image of a successful businessman is associated with world famous names. The success of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates inspires and, at the same time, prompts thoughts about people’s own imperfection. Sometimes it seems that all the famous entrepreneurs were born with the enterprise gene in the blood. But, actually, these people aren’t born entrepreneurs, they became successful entrepreneurs, because they had wanted. Scientists, business experts, venture investors have concluded that everyone can become an entrepreneur at any stage of life and in any area of business, they are people of any type of personality and with any average mark in the certificate. Also scientists claim that if anyone possess a certain set of qualities and has the idea to start his own business, this person can become a successful entrepreneur. Anyone can become an entrepreneur, but few can achieve positive results, and only a few will be able to enter the number of the most successful businessmen. The rest won’t have enough motivation, interest, excitement and other character traits. Looking back, the main components of a successful entrepreneur are divided into three categories of qualities: the first one is personal (psychological) qualities. With the help of them they gain respect and authority among employees and higher colleagues. This category includes a lot of characteristics such as confidence, resourcefulness, responsibility, determination, creativity, self-discipline, motivation, and some others. The next category is business qualities. This is ability to organize work and distribute responsibilities, leadership, communicational skills, ability to persuade, initiative and self-control. And the third category is professional qualities. This is a good special education, erudition, competence in his profession, self-improvement, as well as the ability to plan his work and the work of employees. All the qualities listed above together create exactly the image that effective entrepreneurs strive to meet. And this, in turn, leads to the formation of a positive image of a successful entrepreneur. In practice, people with a full range of the listed qualities are rarely found. Usually there are two or three qualities from each category, but this is enough for successful business. The main thing is to properly use what is available. The ability to know your strengths accurately and apply them with the greatest efficiency can also be attributed to the important and necessary qualities of an entrepreneur. Success comes to those, who are not waiting for it, but he is actively and purposefully moving towards it.