Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Does a leader need to have entrepreneurship knowledge and/or attitude?

In my times I was an entrepreneur as well as a leader. It didn't take much to figure that those two roles have both: differences and similarities which are evident from the behaviors, in the strategies and achievements across a wide range of settings.

Summarizing the differences they fall into some of the categories:

• an entrepreneur builds a vehicle; a leader builds a superhighway on which it travels;
• an entrepreneur gets excited about innovative ideas; a leader creates creative work environments and supports brilliant ways to get things done;
• a leader keeps promises; an entrepreneur is excited by opportunities and may not always consider the time and effort it takes to follow through on their promises;
• a leader values and develops personal relationships at all levels; an entrepreneurs often tends to jeopardize important relationships for an idea to come through;
• an entrepreneur dances with failure; a leader with vision, strategy and policy tries to avoid failures;
• an entrepreneur mostly feels comfortable being alone in his/her mission; a leader attracts and develops the followers to lead.

As with the above differences the same applies to the similarities:

• both, an entrepreneur and a leader, need to be willing and able to grow their companies;
• they both need entrepreneurial cognitions and motivations, knowledge and abilities;
• they both acknowledge a victory, share a credit, and get excited about a task well done;
• both empower the “followers” and the employees to act;
• both are prone to give and accept immediate feedback;
• both are good in letting an employee to act when having a good idea, they like and encourage it;
• if a task or project has taken a wrong direction they both are fast to react to steer it on the correct path.

By sharing the vision leaders and entrepreneurs have the ability to get people on board. They both have flexibility to adapt, openness to feedback, and the ability to learn from mistakes. And lastly, they both share persistence and execution of their vision. They may not share the same ethics and morals but they do have the same values.

The above may not be a full list but it is what I think is the most interesting and important when talking about entrepreneurial leader or entrepreneur that has to be a leader too. In order to be successful in the faster and faster changing environment future leaders (or entrepreneurs) are to learn from each role.

For me the major difference between the two roles is that entrepreneurs are inspired ~ but leaders inspire others.