Getting Started Overview

Everything you need to know about starting a business in a nutshell from Ventureport.org™—the Online Outfitter for the Entrepreneur’s Journey

Overview: Leadership

Do you need to have great leadership skills to be an entrepreneur? Ironically, the answer is no. Many great entrepreneurs have trouble leadig people, but have such great ideas they can prosper anyway. If you don't have leadership skills, it will eventually pay to find someone who does, and focus on what you probably do best—coming up with great ideas.

What is leadership? The vision to see the future, new opportunities, and challenges;

• The ability to inspire great people to join the journey
• The patience to stand behind people and let them find their way;
• The wisdom to let people make mistakes rather than micro-manage
• The insight to ask questions that challenge managers and employees to continually take a fresh look at how what they do affects customers, colleagues, or performance;
• The strength to remain cool under fire
• The humility to stay forever open to ideas or suggestions from anyone
• A fundamental respect for humans, so that you never deprive anyone of their dignity on the path to achieving your goals.

Successful entrepreneurs rarely have every skill and quality related to running a great enterprise, and many enterprises prosper without great leadership as defined above. Visionaries often have colleagues or partners with excellent management skills. In fact, many good operational managers lack a big-picture vision and often seek out visionaries to work for. Terrific salespeople often seek out people strong in creating new products or concepts, operations, or customer service and follow up. You don't need to have every quality and skill involved with business in order to succeed, but it certainly helps to find people who complement your abilities. This starts with taking careful stock of your strengths and weaknesses.

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