Entrepreneurial Leadership
Individual Entrepreneurial Leadership Development Plan
Entrepreneurs invest in new businesses and projects and follow innovative ideas to offer new products and services to meet the customers’ requirements (Islam, et al., 2011). This report also discusses phenomenon of entrepreneurial leadership with consideration of characteristics, behaviors & principles. Apart from this, it also helps to assess the personal skills to provide ideas regarding the areas of improvement and presents a personal and professional development plan for improving skills to be a successful entrepreneurial leader.
Entrepreneurial leadership characteristics, behaviors & principles
There is an academic development of the entrepreneurship that explains the real principles, behaviors, and characteristics of entrepreneurs. In this specific circumstance, Stevenson and Jarillo (2007) focused on risk bearing theory of entrepreneurship and stated that there is uncertainty in the business as the ability to handle the business uncertainty through risk taking ability is the major consideration in the development of entrepreneurial leadership. Risk taking ability assumes a vital part in making entrepreneurial leadership effective. An entrepreneurial leadership needs to take calculated risks according to existing conditions that make the possibility of exceptional yields for the business by making interests in a few undertakings at any given moment (Javalgi, et al., 2010). Indeed, they need to give up their families and social lives and education as well and furthermore confront the risk of financial instability because of high investments in new activities and endeavors.
It can be assessed from the exploration of the views of Kobia and Sikalieh (2010) as it is talked about in the study that the entrepreneurial leaders need with the required planning and management skills, and it influences their capacity to work their new thought legitimately and facilitates their development and achievement.
Entrepreneurial leadership also reflects the characteristic of creating an effective and wide network to recognize and exploit the opportunities rapidly to deliver prevalent execution and be effective. Uncontrolled energy and passion encourage the entrepreneurial leader to recognize the opportunities and make investments in new projects and ventures regardless the achievement or failure (Zahra and Wright, 2011). They take after an insane objective and are expected to relinquish everything to make their activities fruitful.
According to Jones and Crompton (2009), it is fundamental for an entrepreneurial leader to think in an inventive way and utilize imaginative thoughts to design the business adequately. He/she needs to routinely enhance to his/her products and services and apply imaginative thoughts on ventures that eventually end up being fruitful. However, the study of Kirzner (2015) recognizes the learning capacity as a key characteristic of entrepreneurial leadership. Because of this, an entrepreneurial leader gains from missteps and makes great judgments that assistance to flourish in future undertakings. A successful business person does not repeat same mistakes and plans to maintain a strategic distance from such errors in future.
Alongside this, from Alfred Marshall’s Theory of entrepreneurship, it can be assessed that entrepreneurial leaders require great initiative aptitudes and capacity to forecast the market changes with the better comprehension of the business industry. Regarding, in the study of Kharbanda (2011), it is explored that the absence of these capacities as indicated by Alfred Marshall’s Theory is the significant obstructions for being the successful entrepreneurial leader. It is because the absence of these characteristics and behaviors, the entrepreneurial leader unfit to confront the market forces and it influences their capacity to pick up the coveted advantages from their new business thoughts. Moreover, from Max Weber’s Sociological Theory of entrepreneurship as specified in Javalgi, et al., (2010), it can be assessed that the current business environment is changing, and it is very good for the entrepreneurial leader because of availability of needed knowledge and technology assistance that contributes to the development and achievement greatly.
Additionally, Javalgi and Todd (2011) recognized that accepting of new ideas due to having flexibility is observable behavior among the entrepreneurial leaders. Most individuals think being brilliant is everything to being an effective leader yet knowledge, an eagerness to learn new things and an acknowledgment of new realities and viewpoints are additionally fundamental attributes for winning in the entrepreneurial undertaking. The present complex and ever-changing circumstances constrain the individual to show mental sturdiness, the readiness of changing conditions and insight about emerging trends (Islam, et al., 2011). These traits enable the leader to procure the regard and trust of the customers. However, the study of Stoddard, (2010) focuses on some principles like integrity, honesty, and ethics to be a successful entrepreneurial leader.
From the research of Drucker (2014), it is identified that it is compulsory for an entrepreneurial leader to have the patience to be effective. It is because that it requires investment for the entrepreneurial leader to be effective in various undertakings and they need to hold up to get the outcomes on the usage of inventive thoughts. Meanwhile, it is crucial for an entrepreneurial leader to have practical, positive thinking to keep setting up firms or ventures even on failures in past undertakings. It feels free to gain from mistakes to attempt to do the best in the coming time and get the achievement (Dacin, et al., 2010). However, it is identified from the research of Kharbanda (2011) that communication is the important characteristic of entrepreneurial leadership that is effective to obviously verbalize the thoughts, and plan to accomplish shared objectives. Entrepreneurial leaders support correspondence amongst divisions and crosswise over levels. They maintain a strategic distance from ambiguities and speculations and can stay away from conflict and misunderstanding because of poor communication. But in the study of Zahra and Wright (2011), it is found that team building is an important quality for an entrepreneurial leader to build up their specialists and adjust them to ventures that match their qualities. It is important for the entrepreneurial leader to work with different team members from different departments and specialized areas until the point when they work to satisfy the vision. A good entrepreneurial leader can fabricate responsibility among colleagues to accomplish a vision and advance an ability among representatives to move in the direction of a shared objective.
Personal strengths and weaknesses as Entrepreneurial leader
On the basis of the above analysis of literature, it is identified that there are different characteristic, principles, and qualities like risk taking ability, learning capacity, creative thinking, flexibility, positive thinking, etc. to make an entrepreneurial leader. Based on these criteria, I also assess my skills and areas to be a successful entrepreneurial leader and found that there are both strengths and areas for improvement to become an entrepreneurial leader in future. From my skill audit, I recognized that I am good in risk taking ability as I take risks and also face uncertainties easily showing my ability to risk taking. The skills assessment suggests that I have some personal and professional skills such as initiator, learning ability, flexibility, patience and positive thinking sufficiently to handle the future job responsibilities effectively. In addition, I also work on some principles like integrity, honesty, and ethics. But at the same time, I have some weak areas such as planning and management skills, verbal and written communication skills and lack of wide networks; creative thinking and team building that can cause the threat to career progression as an entrepreneurial leader.
After identifying the development needs, I will need to perform some activities such as determination of aim and objectives for learning, planning of achievement and review dates, designing of learning programs and action plan to develop an effective personal development plan. Apart from this, I would also maintain and present transcripts including resume to record my upgraded skills and knowledge on the regular basis. The following personal and professional development plan would be beneficial for me to improve the level of required skills to become an entrepreneurial leader:
| Entrepreneurial Leadership Trait, Behavior, Principle | Key Supporting Literature | Actions Required |
| Wide networking | Zahra and Wright, (2011) | · Social media networking including LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
· Associations Unlimited- a reference database and publication having profiles · Contacts in vocational education and training · Alumni groups · People working in industry or vocational area · Attend seminars, conferences and workshops on interpersonal skills · Attend language programs & personality development classes to being amiable
|
| Communication
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Kharbanda (2011) | · Attend seminars, presentations and group discussions
· Review letters, memos and emails prepared by others · Enroll in a course on business communication or public speaking · Speak in informal environment · To get feedback from others |
| Team building | Zahra and Wright (2011) | · Interact well with others and work co-operatively
· Listen to others carefully · Participate in group assignments and activities · Support others in completing their work |
| Planning and management skills | Kobia and Sikalieh (2010) | · Study materials
· Highlight scheduling and due dates · Use a “to do” list, checklists and similar planning devices · Monitor and adjust priorities · Use project management methodology such as Gantt & PERT charts · To compare the planned and obtained outcomes |
| Creative thinking | Jones and Crompton (2009)
Krizner (2015) |
· Identify significant opportunities and be pro-active in putting forward ideas for problem-solving
· Review different points of view and select the most appropriate one · Participate in Brainstorming exercises and brain games |
Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that there are different characteristics, behaviours and principles that are required to be an entrepreneurial leader.
Dacin, P.A., Dacin, M.T. and Matear, M., (2010) Social entrepreneurship: Why we don’t need a new theory and how we move forward from here. The academy of management perspectives, 24(3), pp.37-57.
Drucker, P., (2014) Innovation and entrepreneurship. UK: Routledge.
Islam, M. A., Khan, M. A., Obaidullah, A. Z. M., and Alam, M. S. (2011) Effect of entrepreneur and firm characteristics on the business success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh. International Journal of Business and Management, 6(3), p.289.
Javalgi, R.G. and Todd, P.R. (2011) Entrepreneurial orientation, management commitment, and human capital: The internationalization of SMEs in India. Journal of Business Research 64, pp. 1004–1010.
Javalgi, R.G., Todd, P. R., Johnston, W. J. and Granot, E. (2010) Entrepreneurship, muddling through, and indian internet-enabled SMEs. Journal of Business Research, pp. 1-5.
Jones, O. and Crompton, H. (2009) Enterprise logic and small firms: a model of authentic entrepreneurial leadership. Journal of Strategy and Management 2(4) pp. 329-351.
Kharbanda, V.P. (2011) Academician to entrepreneur Impact of globalization on science and technology policies in China and India. Journal of Science and Technology Policy in China 2(1) pp. 7-26.
Kirzner, I.M., (2015) Competition and entrepreneurship. University of Chicago press.
Kobia, M. and Sikalieh, D., (2010) Towards a search for the meaning of entrepreneurship. Journal of European industrial training, 34(2), pp.110-127.
Stevenson, H.H. and Jarillo, J.C., (2007) A paradigm of entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial management. In Entrepreneurship (pp. 155-170). UK: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Stoddard, B. (2010) Reflections of a Serial Entrepreneur: A Street-smart Guide to Starting Your Own Company. UK: iUniverse.
Zahra, S.A. and Wright, M., (2011) Entrepreneurship’s next act. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 25(4), pp.67-83.
