Contribution of Leadership to Successful Entrepreneurship - Essay Example

Contribution of leadership tosuccessful entrepreneurship

Introduction

In the modern world, it can be said that entrepreneurship is has been in more occasions been a topic of discussion as compared to previously. However, there are a number of factors that can lead to the success or failure of an entrepreneur. One of such factors is leadership.The extent to which good or poor leadership can lead to the success of an entrepreneur has been discussed in numerous occasions, but rarely is it analyzed in depth as most cases it is analyzed inclusive of the other factors that have influence on Entrepreneurship. This is an implication that the scope of the resultant study is always widened. This paper will be aiming to reverse this trend by critically evaluating what leadership means to successful entrepreneurship and the contribution it may make to recognizing business opportunities that can exploited by likely future trends in the 21st Century.

Leadership and leadership types

• • In the business environment, there are different leadership styles that are always employed. There are various factors that determine the applicability of a certain leadership style to different business ideas. Leadership style is commonly referred to as the approach and manner of providing direction, motivating human resource, and implementing strategies in a business setting.The leadership styles that are commonly used in the world of business include: democratic,authoritarian,transactional, and deligative.
  • Under the authoritarian style of leadership, the leader gives instruction on what is to be done, when it is to be done, and how it is to be done without any consideration of the opinion of the subjects. A democratic style of leadership is based on the involvement of employees in various levels of an organization in decision making. A deligative leadership style involves stating ofexpectations of the leader to the subject and letting the subjects work under minimal supervision. However, it should be noted that under the deligative style of leadership, leaders are still responsible for decisions made, thus the need for having highly skilled and experienced employees. The transactional style of leadership involved allocation of tasks with rewards or punishments being given at completion of the tasks depending on the nature of the results.
  • The style of leadership determines the ability of an entrepreneur to motivate the human resource in an organization and match the attributes of the human resource that an organization has with the other resources in an organization with the aim of ensuring that an organization gets the most from their employees. For an entrepreneur, it is important to be in a position to know the resources that is at their disposal. This will highly determine the approaches of leadership that they take. It should also be noted that it would be almost impossible to choose certain organizational cultures and structure if they indeed they do not match the leadership style that an entrepreneur intend to use or encouraged to use in an organization that they start (Rigby 2011, p. 187).
  • For an entrepreneur to be able to identify a potential business opportunity they must have leadership skills and the ability of visualizing the leadership requirements for a business opportunity to actually be turned into a business venture. It should be noted that entrepreneurship is not always limited by the unavailability, but the ability of making things work. If an entrepreneur does have a convincing and legitimately viable business idea it would not take long before they get investors. This in itself proves that an entrepreneur needs to have the ability of knowing what exactly the potential business needs, how to get it, and the potential benefits that would rise from the venture(Nelson 2015, p. 121). The leadership skills would be determining the human resource attributes, how to get employees who match the attributes and making sure that the productivity of the acquired employees is at the maximum. This will highly depend of the leadership skills and styles applied by an entrepreneur.
  • Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship
  • For any person who is intending to start their own business, it is important to note that entrepreneurship is about more than just having a brilliant business idea. Turning a business idea into an actual business organization involves having the skill set that are required in making sure that all the needed resources are availed and that when the business comes to an existence, it is as a result of the implementation of a plan that was put in place before the business comes to existence. This is why it is asserted that unless a person has good leadership skills, they will hardly make good entrepreneurs (Greenberg, Mckone-Sweet & Wilson 2011, p. 202). Even an entrepreneur who hires a manager to manage a business that they start will need to have a vision. Most business organization has the visions of the founders as their foundation. This is something that remains even after the entrepreneur has passed away. However, a vision is only as good as the ability of the bearer to make sure that it is understood by the employees who are directly involved in making the vision come true.
  • Entrepreneurshipshould be about solving problems though seeing gaps in the market, determining the resources that will be required, sourcing the resources, and making sure that the resources are well used in filling the initially identified gap in e market. If an individual identifies a business idea but does nothing about then they are likely to get nothing from that idea. They will also have failed infilling the gap that would also have help in reduction of unemployment. This is an indication that an entrepreneur is someone whom people can be able to look up to.All the involved parties look at theentrepreneurs from the employees, the consumers and the investors. All these people contribute to the success of a business, but it is the entrepreneurs who identifyhow their contributions are brought together (Hmieleski & Ensley 2007, p. 877). Market researches are always carried with the aim of determining what consumers would demand. Then the information is used in determining the quantity and quality of human and other resources required. Such information plus financial performance projections can be used in bringing investors on board.

Success

• • Success is a term that is always used with reference to the accomplishment of a goal or purpose. The success of a company or what is referred to as success within an organization is always determined by the entrepreneur. This is because the goal of an organization is always determined even before a business is started. By identifying the gap in the market and the manner in which the gap can best be filled an entrepreneur is simply identifying the path through which the goals of an organization can be set. However, it is upon an entrepreneur to make sure that they get employees who have the capacity of sharing and fulfilling the goals. If they are unable to do so, then there is a high possibility that they will not be a success as entrepreneurs. The goals are achievable, but not by the effort of a single person.Therefore, the ability of an individual to have as system that ensures that they have the best employees, working in the best possible environment and with the highest level of motivation is a one of the things that distinguish successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful ones (Scheer 2009, p. 177).
  • However, how much brilliant an idea is, it success does not depend on the brilliance of the idea, but on the leadership of the entrepreneur. This is basically supported by the fact that there are many people who have had very brilliant ideas, but have failed to turn the visions into reality because of the fact that they lacked leadership qualities (Rhoads 2014, p. 201). Entrepreneurship entails more than wishing or knowing how things should be, but making sure that they are just like they are supposed to be.The required resources and knowledge do not come easy, and thus, an entrepreneur should be resilient and brave enough not to shy away from the risks that are involved in making a great business idea work.

Decision making

• • For an entrepreneur to be successful they have to be able to organize the factors of production leading to the achievement of the goals of an organization. Decisions on factors such as the suitable location for the business, qualifications to be considered when hiring, and the right equipment usually have a high impact on an organization. This is why decision making of an entrepreneur is of high importance. Despite the fact that business make decisions that shape organizations on a daily basis, the decisions made at the beginning have high effect on an organization. Choosing the wrong location for a business can be costly for a very long time. The same goes with the choice of business culture. The culture of a business will determine how other stakeholders such as employees and customers view an organization (Skjærseth & Wettestad 2010, p. 319). This is basically leadership.it can be said that the decisions that an entrepreneur make at the beginning of a business can provide leadership to the business long after they have already died.
  • Coming up with a strategy that is based on the analysis of environment is referred to as an informed decision making. For an entrepreneur who bases their decisions on proved reasons, there is a very high possibility that they will be able to bring into existence a highly competitive business. This is what all good leaders do: making decisions on the basis of thoroughly searched information because leaving things to chances in not a good thing. People might think that this implies that the decisions should be without any risks. Entrepreneurship cannot be without risks, and the only difference between a good entrepreneur and a poor one is the fact that the good one makes informed decisions, thus is aware of all the risks that are involved in any decision that they make.Therefore, nothing is very a big surprise to such entrepreneurs.

The Business Environment

• • Business environment is always used with reference to all the internal and external factors that influence the operation of a business organization. For an entrepreneur to be successful they need to make sure that they take into consideration the business environment in all the decisions that they make. For instance,an entrepreneur should be aware of all the political factors that influence the operation of a business in the industry and geographical location that they intend to start a business. On the same note they should also know that the internal environment that they set in the organization will be of a big influence on the performance of the employees and managers of the resultant of business. This is an indication that entrepreneurs become leaders even before they have anyone to lead. The decision that they make based on business environment analysis and the leadership requirements of the potential business go a long way in influencing the businesses.
  • An entrepreneur should be a person with the ability to identify opportunities in environmental changesand trends. However, they should also have the ability to match this with the resources that they can be able to get their hands through whichever means. Given the fact that the business might not have influence on the external environment, it is only wise for an entrepreneur to take keen consideration of the external factors and the manner in which they are of influence to the operation of an organization. This would be a way through which the internal environmental factors can be set in a manner that they will be effective in enabling the organization cope with the external environmental factors.

Complexity

• • A keen look at entrepreneurship, someone will notice that it is more complex than most people would imagine. The leadership qualities of an individual can really be useful in such a situation. Despite the fact that a business is not in existence by the time that an entrepreneur has a great business idea, they have to base their thoughts on the imagination that the business is already in existence. This is done with the purpose of being able to identify all the factors that might lead to either success or failure of the business organization. If an entrepreneur is unable to identify these factors and know exactly how the factors will be of influence to the business once the business is operational, then is can be said that they are not good leaders and that they do not provide good leadership for the purpose of achievement of the goals of an organization.
  • An entrepreneur should be a good decision maker. Amid all the complexities involved in a business environment and makings sure that the environmental factors are balanced such that they complement each other and cancel the challenges that are presented by each other, a good leader would be one who remains calm because of the fact that they have plans that have all the factors into consideration. The same qualities make an entrepreneur a good one.A good entrepreneur is one that is able to balance the opportunities and threats so that the resultant balance is an internal environment is conducive for the achievement of the goals of an organization.

Future Trends

• • Consideration of future trends is a common thing in cotemporal business environment.Given he levels competition, most organizations have had a hard time coping with the situations as it is. However, a good leader is one with the ability of analysing changes in trend such as theyable to effectively predict trends that are likely to emerge in the future. For a good leader, it can be said that thus is a way through which they manage to stay ahead of their competitors. By being able to forecast future trends a good leader can be able to take actions that will enable them to be in a polar position to enhance their performance when the trends actually starts having effect on the market.
  • The ability to forecast future trend is a leadership quality that all entrepreneurs should have. In the modern business environment most of the opportunities that can be considered to be lucrative are already crowded. This is an implication that an entrepreneur needs to be someone with the ability of thinking outside the box.This is a way through which they can be able to come up with ideas that are meant to fulfil some of the needs that most consumers are not even aware that they have. This is what in some cases bereferred to inducing demand. It takes someone with the ability to keenly collect information on the behaviour of consumers and analyse them in order to be able to forecast what they might need in the future, but actually do not need at that particular time. If proper strategies are involved, an entrepreneur will be in a position of knowing that ins such cases instant results is impossible.

Conclusion

Conclusively, it is clearly evident that leadership qualities are of high contribution to the success of an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur does more than just coming up with a good business idea. they have to make many decisions on how things ill be done in a business even before the business is an existence. As shown herein, a good entrepreneur is one with the ability to make sound decisions on the internal business environment. These decisions cannot be sound if they are not based on proved information. Just like what it is expected of leaders, entrepreneurs are expected to know the information that is needed for decision making in different situations and how to get the information. Furthermore, they are expected to study market trends so that they can be able to forecast the future trend. Basically, all these expectations explain what leadership means to successful entrepreneurship and the contribution it may make to recognizing business opportunities that can exploited by likely future trends in the 21st Century.

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