A lot has been said and written
about the real life entrepreneurs- revolving around the life’s of Dhirubhai
Ambani, the Tatas, Birlas, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates to name a few. Reading
about their biographies motivates everyone to be like one of them, have name,
fame, money, thrills and chills. But is it practically possible for everyone to
be an entrepreneur? Moreover think of a picture sketched where everyone has
become an entrepreneur has opened his/her small businesses aiming to embark on
a path that no one has followed previously and achieve the unthinkable. Wait a minute
from where will now one get the employees or support staff required to run the
businesses, isn’t it in such kind of a scenario there will be more employers
than employees (if any). To maintain this balance nature has not provided
everyone with same kind of ability and social environment which has a direct
impact on his/her attitude. However hard we may try one cannot become a
successful entrepreneur until and unless he has certain abilities and has
developed minimum basic necessary skills. Some of these skills have been
discussed in the next section.
The first and foremost is the
leadership skill. Apart from developing the vision for his venture, a successful
entrepreneur needs to imbibe that vision into his subordinates, colleagues and
the society he is going to serve. He should take up the mantle of providing the
guidance and direction required to be shown when one goes on such kind of
unseen nascent voyages. Networking skills are also very important to engage
people in the venture, garner political and financial support for the initiative.
Creativity and innovative skills are again very important in the sense that
they lay the foundation for the distinctive feature required to be embedded in
your product or services if it has to survive the brutal competition of the
modern business world. Last but not the least an entrepreneur needs to have
pressure handling skills and the skills to absorb and learn from failures. He
should be able to remain calm as cucumber during the time of crisis. Only god
can be correct each and every time he does something new. There are bound to
have failures at times simply because we are following a path that has not been
taken before. Rather than getting disheartened and lose motivation he should
see it as an opportunity to learn something new. In the next section we will
describe the level of motivation required to be an entrepreneur taking a cue
from the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model.
A person at physiological and Safety level
of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will simply be too engrossed in fulfilling his
day to day needs that he will hardly have any time to wake and listen to his
creative side of mind. In addition to it his risk appetite will be very low. At
Social level of the model a person will be busy building social relations to
have a sense of security. He will be in the process of exploring himself and
the society hence again not much can be counted upon him to go on a path rarely
taken. Maximum expectations can be put on a person having motivation level sky
high depicted by being present at either Esteem level or Self Actualization
level of the model. Either out of the curiosity to explore and redefine own
limits or out of utter selfishness to prove himself better than his fellow
human beings, a person is expected to display great hunger and will power
required to succeed as an entrepreneur.
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