Asked to name famous entrepreneurs and perhaps most people would list Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Richard Branson (Virgin) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
But what are the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur?
According to research published by Forbes magazine effective entrepreneurs show drive, resilience, self confidence, flexibility and vision.
These are not necessarily exclusive to the famous examples quoted above.
Anyone who thinks they may have the makings of an entrepreneur should consider whether they are driven by the heart and by an unshakable sense of purpose. Also, do they have resilience; to quote Sir Winston Churchill, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
While self confidence is important the successful entrepreneur needs to be flexible and open-minded to the possibility that what seemed like a brilliant idea may not be effective in reality without making significant adjustments.
Perhaps the one distinguishing characteristic common to entrepreneurs is their ability to see opportunity everywhere and to be always looking for new ideas.
Finally, an analysis of 23 research studies published under the title “The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Entrepreneurial Status” recently comparing entrepreneurs to corporate managers found that the entrepreneurs scored far more highly on traits such as openness to experience and conscientiousness but significantly lower on neuroticism making them much better able to cope with stress.
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