Personality Traits Approach to Explaining Entrepreneurship - Coursework Example

? PERSONALITY TRAITS APPROACH TO EXPLAINING ENTREPRENEURSHIP ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ Date: ------------ Entrepreneurship is the driver of many world economies today. entrepreneurship is purely an act of innovation of ideas and therefore the sole aim of the act of entrepreneurship is to make economic situations better by coming up with new ideas and implementing them so as to make the economic environment favorable to all the parties involved such as the consumers, producers and the government among others. Entrepreneurship is a continuum of activity (Bruin 2003). Entrepreneurs are those people who come up with innovations and finance that idea so as to exploit the idea into an income generating business in a bid to improve his economic situation and those of other individuals in the society. Entrepreneurship is not a simple phenomenon and not every individual is viable to become an entrepreneur. For any meaningful research to result, psychological approaches in the future studies of entrepreneurship need to carefully examine the personality variables being studied (Frese 2000) There are several traits that those successful entrepreneurs possess that make them outstanding in the entrepreneurial world. These traits include even the personality or psychological ones. Personality traits are those traits that define an individual in terms of what he does and how he undertakes different tasks when faced by some situation. That is how an individual thinks and behave in different situations. Entrepreneurship can be studied from different perspectives since it is a very wide topic of discussion and needs critical assessment to understand. From a personality view of study, entrepreneurship is an interesting area of study. One of the most significant traits that is fundamental in entrepreneurship is integrity. Integrity refers to the act of being honest to all the parties involved in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a process that cannot be carried out by a single individual. There are several individuals or group of individuals that participate in the acts so as to produce final positive results in the economy. One of the parties involved is the government; an entrepreneur must honor the rules and regulations laid down by the government and observe them at all times. These regulations include the tax policies of a government. An entrepreneur is obliged to pay the tax dues as required by law and successful entrepreneurs know that for his idea to thrive and to ensure solvency for his entity, he or she must honor his tax obligations at all times. Another party involved is the suppliers. The entrepreneur must honor them by treating their creditors with respect and honoring their dues, keeping promises in terms of paying them in time and the agreed amounts. Employees are key players in entrepreneurship and therefore should be taken for granted. The entrepreneur should know this and give them maximum respect at take their interests at heart when making his entrepreneurial decisions. The most important individuals that are most vital to an entrepreneur are the customers. These are the main reason will determine whether an entrepreneur will fail in his entrepreneurial endeavors or fail. An entrepreneur must express some business ethics in dealing with his customers. This is a trait that happens to be so important that without it, one is bound to fail. Being an honest and integral individual in entrepreneurship motivates the employees to follow the example and avoid unethical behaviors such as engaging in fraud or corruption. These acts are dangerous to the existence of a business entity. Integrity is not just a policy, but researchers have clearly shown that it is the only policy in running a business entity. Perseverance is another personal trait that is equally important in entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur is bound to go through a lot of challenges before implementing his idea. There is no one defined way to successful entrepreneurship. The economic environment is very harsh most of the times and such factors can make a light-hearted individual to back off and surrender to these situations. The economy is characterized by ups and downs known as boom and recessions respectively. The time period of recession can be prolonged and is undefined. Economists use indicators to predict these economic changes and their predictions cannot be one hundred percent perfect about these conditions change unpredictably. This gives entrepreneurs no option but take risks in venturing in entrepreneurship with all these uncertainties. There are times when the economic situations are favorable and others when they are tough. When times are hard, an enlightened entrepreneur knows so well as to persevere and wait for the hard time to pass. The hard times are those that are characterized by low or negative returns to an entrepreneurial venture. The entrepreneur should use organizational goals such as time-management to curb or control some situations. The goals set should also include some strategies to cope with uncertainties. To build a successful company a high level of commitment and self drive is required. This is paramount to deal with risks. At start up a company, there are many challenges involved and most of the times companies make capital losses. An entrepreneur must persevere these so as the company becomes a going concern. When implementing an idea, the level of self confidence also plays a huge role to determine how an entrepreneur carries out his activities. Working smarter and faster and being ahead of the pack gives an entrepreneur an upper hand in terms of success. Confidence portrays an aspect of independence in an individual and this makes decision making in him an easy task for him. The individual is self assured in most instances and believes in himself. Such entrepreneurs believe that they are right at all times and the entrepreneur is not afraid to venture into different entrepreneurial activities. This does not imply that they are always right, but that attitude gives the confidence that is needed to succeed. These entrepreneurs will listen to advice from experts and their colleagues but they always have the last say in decision making. Confidence is based on logic rather than emotion. Emotions tend to make individuals conservative and are afraid to take risks when faced by challenging situations. A successful business is built on well calculated risks and logical steps rather than mere emotional driven decisions. To build one’s confidence, entrepreneurs evaluate his strengths and weaknesses to work on ways to improve on the weaknesses and maximize on the strengths. Confidence is aids in the collaboration of all the other traits. Without confidence, the other traits fall apart in their operation and it has been proved that they all depend on ones confidence level. No single business starts off with certainty of returns. Entrepreneurs cannot be certain of the growth of their entities in the future and neither are they certain of whether their ideas are viable in the existing economic environment. Even those businesses that operate as monopolies are not certain that consumers will appreciate their products prior to the establishment of the entities. The businesses have to start off first and this means that some costs will be incurred in implementing their idea. Most entrepreneurs are faced by financial constraints and most of them seek funds from financial institutions such as banks. These funds have to be repaid with some interest on the principal amount borrowed. This only adds to the expenses of the company that has only been set up. It also adds to the risks facing the company before the company is certain whether it will make profits or losses. If an entrepreneur is not self confident enough, he will definitely not undertake the venture therefore losing out on potential returns and growth of his idea. A successful entrepreneur is also defined by the way he adapts to different changes in the economic environment. An entrepreneur must be flexible in order to remain relevant in the business environment. It is a common phenomenon for many established companies to face different challenges due to the changing demands of the market. An entrepreneur must therefore be open minded and flexible so as to take advantage of the dynamic market and reap profits from such activities. Adaptability goes a long way in ensuring that a business entity remains relevant in the wake of changing market trends. If an entrepreneur finds out that the business environment is different in some other geographical location, the entrepreneur improvises ways to fit into such an environment and continues to make some positive returns. If adaptability lacks in an entrepreneur, his entity is likely to run into difficulties and may even result into liquidation. There exists different consumer wants in different locations. This is due to different cultural backgrounds and difference in taste and preferences of individuals. This gives the entrepreneur a reason to have adaptability and in this case flexibility goes hand in hand to ensure sustainability of a business idea. The economic environment is highly uncertain and this is exactly why entrepreneurs remain relevant. It is because of this phenomenon that an entrepreneur must have stubbornness. This is an interesting trait which makes an entrepreneur different from other individuals in other fields. This simply implies that decision making should not be influenced by what other people think or say about a certain decision. An entrepreneur would only be stubborn to let others decide what his entity should be, or what it should not be. On the other hand, a smart entrepreneur knows that he has to be stubborn to stand by his word and to make decisions that suit his entity. One of the things that destroy potentially great ideas is compromise. This trait gives entrepreneurs the ability to identify those things that the other people do not see. This gives the entrepreneur the power to ignore what others say that may be harmful to the business. Entrepreneurs have to be obsessive. This trait is what makes these entrepreneurs spend hours on end trying to figure out how a certain mechanism would affect their businesses given a certain situation no matter how small the factor is. The idea behind this is that pursuing some factor, no matter how minute it is, might be advantageous to the business in the long run. Most people would not be able to sacrifice their precious time on small issues and they give up easily especially when the issue in question is a small one. It is not an out-of-the ordinary action to find these entrepreneurs spending the whole night working on a certain area concerning their businesses. This happens despite other factors such as family issues. Dedication is another key trait defining an entrepreneur. Dedication gives the entrepreneur motivation to elevate his business to greater heights taking into account whatever it takes to succeed. Dedication reduces fear that comes with uncertainty. The risks involved in running a business are managed easily if one is dedicated to his business. An entrepreneur tends to take care of his business much easily and efficiently if he is dedicated to his business. This is because with dedication, it is easy to identify the looming risks that threaten the existence of a business and thus he is able to minimize them and retain them. Planning is another important trait. It is said that if one fails to plan, then he is definitely planning to fail. In any uncertain environment, a comprehensive plan is paramount for success. A business environment is in this category and especially since it deals with money matters, it is a sensitive area that requires a well designed plan for it to carry out its activities smoothly. A plan is evaluated from time to time to ensure that the objectives of establishing the business are being achieved and assess whether the company is going in the right direction as planned initially. Great entrepreneurs are not born according to recent researches. They are made and they are made of some several traits that make them strongholds in the business world. Psychological characteristics of the entrepreneur and entrepreneurial behaviors have been more or less found to distinguish the successful and the unsuccessful entrepreneurs (Frese 2000). Therefore for one to be a successful entrepreneur, he or she has to possess most or all of the traits named above. References Bruin, A., & Dupuis, A. 2003, Entrepreneurship: new perspectives in a global age. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate. Frese, M., Chell, E., & Klandt, H. 2000, Psychological approaches to entrepreneurship. Hove, East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press, in association with the International Association of Applied Psychology. Read More