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 their parents? Luck? You will soon realize that whatever you can see on the surface may be supplemented 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 the writers have come to realize through their studies and their discussions is that everyone has seen entrepreneurs, but no one can be sure of their characteristics.

Some characteristics they found successful entrepreneurs 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 a willingness to work harder and longer hours, and produce high-quality, positive results for the organization in which they are employed. Many studies that tried 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 entrepreneurs and employees. By asserting that entrepreneurs are defined by the 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 done 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, implicitly, 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 business idea development stage 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 be successful. Correlating to the internal locus of control, a successful entrepreneur believes that it is up to him to develop a successful business idea, turn it into an opportunity, and take advantage of it by effectively managing a team of experts in his field. .

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

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