Introduction
In thinking about what makes a good leader, there is no doubt that some aspects will come out. Typically, it takes someone with specific attributes to maintain a leadership position. However, there are particular skills deemed necessary to be an excellent entrepreneurial leader. For example, communication is a crucial aptitude for seniors to clarify, direct, coach, support, and make decisions in the workplace (Esmer & Faruk, 2017). A manager in possession of this ability effectively plans how to achieve common goals. He or she supports and shares growth while creating a conducive atmosphere for attaining the organizational vision.
Who is an Entrepreneurial Leader?
An entrepreneurial leader refers to someone who creates a business, bears most risks, and enjoys rewards. The process of establishing a business is what is known as entrepreneurship. The person in charge of the leadership is referred to as an entrepreneur who is the source of ideas, services, goods, and procedures (Esmer & Faruk, 2017). In a country’s economy, business operators play a huge role in using skills and initiatives vital to anticipating the needs and bringing new ideas to the market.
Why Entrepreneurial Leadership is Important
To keep up with the new market changes, businesses require forward, creating, and innovative ideas. An entrepreneurial leader is seen as an innovator of new ideas or processes and creates opportunities for people. Furthermore, for changes to occur in an organization or economy, a team must be led by effective management and necessary motivation. According to Ford et al. (2017), positive changes are easy to initiate with effective leadership that values people’s input. Entrepreneurs drive impacts by influencing others, inspiring, and taking actions. Therefore, it is crucial for leaders to be people-oriented and possess useful abilities or qualities.
Characteristics of a Strong Entrepreneurial Leader
Emotional intelligence is required for effective leadership and is widely known as a key element. The ability to tune perceptively with self and emotions and having situation awareness is a powerful tool to lead a team (Meraku, 2017). The art of knowing, responding, and overcoming stress, and being aware of how actions of words affect other people is what makes entrepreneurial leaders strong. Emotional intelligence consists of components such as empathy, self-management, self-awareness, relationship management, and good communication.
Strong entrepreneurial leaders remain true to their words, which involves being loyal to people they interact with, customers, or employees. Being authentic means remaining firm to goals and inspirations despite the opposition from various sources (Tur-Porcar, Roig-Tierno & Llorca Mestre, 2018). Aside from being truthful, entrepreneur seniors are honest and recognized as people of integrity in business. Strong leadership is demonstrated when handling daily activities, challenges, and issues as they arise within an organization in the course of the work. iIn business, both employees and leaders need to be authentic in operations, but executives must set the tone.
String entrepreneurial leaders must uphold clear visions, enabling communication of what needs to be done in an organization. Keeping up with the changing world requires roadmaps, and organizational executives perceive a vision as the pillar of all functions to be carried out. Without a purpose and direction, activities cannot be done effusively, and innovations are shallow or limited (Meraku, 2017). Besides telling workers what to do, providing the reason why things have to be done in a certain way gives the essence of working hard.
Leadership style plays a vital role in entrepreneurial businesses and today’s marketplace. Strong leaders are exhibited by choice of approaches they adopt to conduct businesses and engage employees. Normally, there are various styles to use in entrepreneurship, including transactional, transformational, coercive, and democratic (Gandolfi & Stone, 2017). The choice and effectiveness of the leading method chosen delineate a weak entrepreneurial leader from a poor one. While effective seniors known which approach works best for teams, poor leaders struggle with leading strategies.
A person who is willing to push through challenges is undoubtedly confident in abilities and deeds. Strong entrepreneurial leaders exhibit their confidence and determination in some ways. For example, unlike poor leaders who will be aggressive in the workplace, strong organization executives are assertive and approach situations in a friendly manner (Esmer & Faruk, 2017). Besides, effective entrepreneurs know that they have to show confidence proudly so that potential partners or associates will easily trust the judgments. Successful people always exude confidence, and it is obvious that they will believe in themselves and what they do.
Organizational teams do not work well without teamwork as it is the key to success, and strong entrepreneurial leaders know that. To have meaningful long-life success, one needs to work with others, which is why teamwork is crucial in the professional world. Effective leaders know that working as a team help generate more ideas, make informed decisions as members support one another (Esmer & Faruk, 2017). Within the groups, communication and feedback systems are established to ensure tasks meet deadlines. Should a member encounter challenges while executing tasks, colleagues can give support where necessary.
Characteristics of a Poor Entrepreneurial Leader
Integrity is defined as the quality of upholding strong ethical or moral principles and being honest to do what is right even when no one is watching. Lack of integrity by leaders can lead to decision-making based on self-interests, and neglect how choices might affect others. Often, entrepreneurial leaders lacking integrity focuses on short-term goals for self satisfaction and pay little attention to community concerns such as sustainability (Tur-Porcar, Roig-Tierno & Llorca Mestre, 2018). A lack of integrity will lead to distrust, especially among employees. One indicators of leadership failure is where employees do not trust their seniors and this hinders ability to meet business goals.
Unlike great leaders who employs a wide range of strategies to deal with organizational issues, poor entrepreneurs will stick to one leadership approach throughout. No matter how unproductive leading styles are, weak organizations’ seniors affect workers’ motivation with rigid styles (Gandolfi & Stone, 2017). Employees envy vigilant executives and risk-takers who set examples by overcoming challenges no matter the situations. While there is no one size fit all approach, flexibility in leadership is important to set a culture of perseverance. Good leaders recognizes what works best by being tactic and avoid resistance or unwillingness to change
A leader’s work is to push forward, and unlike good entrepreneurs, lousy managers are less focused on what or how to make productive workforce. In case a business leader is not future-oriented by demonstrating clear plans, no progress will progress (Tur-Porcar, Roig-Tierno & Llorca Mestre, 2018). Leaders who do not have well-defined goals will fail employees and entire organizations.Without a vision, a business is bound to fail due to lack of a roadmap and guidelines to inform workers what need to be done. Employees lose morale when there is no motivation and inspirations, while they lack the ability to create sustainable value. Visions align organizations’ activities and keep everyone focused on goals.
Usually, employees know when seniors are completely honest through applied communication approaches. Organizational teams appreciate the knowledge of where the company stands or is headed as informed by leaders. With such transparency, individuals focus on key priorities for long-term benefits. Team performance relies mostly on defined objectives by managers who will appreciate progress and reward hard work (Esmer & Faruk, 2017). However, poor entrepreneurs are unable to take responsibility to coach or monitor activities and will leave individuals to work on their own expecting results. Consequently, low accountability and transparency not only hurt workers’ motivation but also leads to poor decision making.
Unlike strong leaders who value people’s opinions by knowing that insights from employees bring innovations, poor managers dismiss opinions and instruct people to follow their decisions. Such a behavior affect organizational success hinders people’s creativity. Normally, it is by letting workers share views and providing feedback that improves performance. Welcoming ideas and helping implement them is incredibly meaningful to team members, as they feel valuable to the organization (Tur-Porcar, Roig-Tierno & Llorca Mestre, 2018). Every worker needs to be part of a process and the big picture. Communication within teams produce good insights concerning approaches, methods, and solutions to challenges.
Similarities in Characteristics of Bad and Poor Leaders
Whether strong or weak, an entrepreneurial leader will always believe in attaining goals and taking organizations to another level. Usually, anyone can be a leader, but this depends on possessed skills, personalities, and abilities as key ingredients for leading a group of people. Both effective and weak seniors are responsible in controling resources such as workers (Esmer & Faruk, 2017). They tell people what to do, set directions and expectations of what to meet. However, inputs such as inspirations, communication, motivations, and support are what set entrepreneurs apart.
Conclusion
Since management is defined as getting things done by others, leadership is about influencing practices. To lead means mobilizing individuals towards a common goal, and an excellent leader helps build human capital by motivation and taking concerted actions. Furthermore, leaders including awareness of when, where, or how formal authority can be used. Being an effective team leader means embracing vital skills, qualities, principles, and ambitions to lead people into a positive change.
References
Esmer, Y., & Faruk, D. A. Y. I. (2017). Entrepreneurial leadership: A theoretical framework. Mehmet Akif Ersoy Ăśniversitesi Ä°ktisadi ve Ä°dari Bilimler FakĂĽltesi Dergisi, 4(2), 112-124. Web.
Ford, J., Harding, N. H., Gilmore, S., & Richardson, S. (2017). Becoming the leader: Leadership as material presence. Organization Studies, 38(11), 1553-1571. Web.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2017). The emergence of leadership styles: A clarified categorization. Revista De Management Comparat International, 18(1), 18. Web.
Meraku, A. (2017). Role of leadership in organizational effectiveness. Journal of Economics, Business and Management, 5(11). Web.
Tur-Porcar, A., Roig-Tierno, N., & Llorca Mestre, A. (2018). Factors affecting entrepreneurship and business sustainability. Sustainability, 10(2), 452. Web.