Qualities of an Entrepreneur

Different people have different understanding of the term Entrepreneur, for some it’s someone who starts something new, for others it’s someone who thinks of new ideas and for even some others it’s a person who is a dreamer of sorts.

However, has anyone ever thought of an entrepreneur as an agent for social change? By far, an entrepreneur is a person who changes the way people think, the way people act and react, an entrepreneur is an innovator, an idealist a perfectionist, a thinker, an executor… While the others are people who search for employment, the entrepreneur is someone who creates it, while the others wait expectedly for the next pay cheque, the entrepreneur finds out ways to get them their payslips, while the others wait for instructions, the entrepreneur gives them, and while the others get up each single day in fear of his job, the entrepreneur gets up vowing to make his dreams as reality.

So different is the entrepreneur from the normal crowd, he is someone who leads by example, who works through leadership, who dreams big and more importantly achieves them. And let’s face it, not everyone has it in them, the question is, do you?

Now let us see what the most important qualities of an entrepreneur are:

a. He most definitely should have an drive to succeed and that too should come from within..

b. He must be terrifically competitive in nature, give an inch, and take a foot…

c. He must be self-motivated and energetic

d. Should be a change manager, should not be apprehensive of change, in fact he must embrace it

e. Should accept constructive criticism, and at times even hard core rejection

f. Highly resourceful and creative in work and life

g. Continuously walk on the path of self-discovery

All these are qualities you can either be born with, but most importantly many institutes around the world have realised that such qualities can also be taught, not just in a book format but as case studies and allowing incubation centres in their premises where the to-be-entrepreneur can see how his idea goes through chaos during the ideation phase, and then implement them in the execution phase.

So while people are slowly realizing that such qualities can be taught, the next step is obviously as to who can teach it. No pure science college can teach it, because while creativeness and being abstract is the core of the course, dreaming itself isn’t enough, then how about an engineering college? Well that wouldn’t work either, cause the very basics of entrepreneurship is the fact that one should not get bogged down by laws that seem to straddle down the engineering department. It seems only fit that a management school is the best place to learn entrepreneurship, the simple reason is that you meet people from different backgrounds, you learn to live with conflicting ideas, in chaos, you learn to take tough decisions in life, but most importantly it allows you to think like a person who is in control of not just others but himself too.

But one must understand that not every management course can built you a successful entrepreneur, there must be more to it. There are a few courses for entrepreneurs in India as well, and is no longer restricted to the niche courses abroad. So the question isn’t is there an opportunity, the question is: Do you have it in You?