Google the words Managerial Traits or Entrepreneurial Traits; you will get upto 15 million links to write-ups on these. Each write up advocates a certain number of traits as critical; some give 10 traits, some others 20 traits and so on..
How does one figure out which traits are more important than others? And how does one imbibe all these traits?
How does one assess whether one’s abilities are adequate as a Management Professional or an Entrepreneur?
5 Deliverables of a Management Professional or Entrepreneur
Logic is the best way to arrive at any prioritisation. Management and Entrepreneurial traits too need to be identified on that basis. So what should the logic be?
Let’s start with what a Business Manager/Entrepreneur needs to do, to build a successful business.There are five key deliverables expected from the entrepreneur and the management team. These are
- The Vision and Objectives for the business
- Planning and Directing the execution strategy to ensure success
- The passion and energy to keep the momentum high
- Managing people – internal and external, to get the best out of them
- Perseverance – to keep moving despite hurdles and hardships
What traits does a manager/entrepreneur need to ensure he/she can manage on all these fronts?
Core Managerial/Entrepreneurial Traits
At the core, the managerial/entrepreneurial traits needed are –
- Creative thinking
- Market Understanding
- Enthusiasm
- People Management
- Positivity
- Resilience
The truth is- every one will have a bit of all of these.The truth also is – there is no one type of personality or style that has all this in the right measure.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mukesh Ambani clearly don’t seem similar to each other. Yet they are all big achievers who definitely had all the 6 core traits, at the right time, in right measure, in order to achieve their goals.
One thing is for sure – each of these super successful persons couldn’t have had just one way of handling each situation.
It was their ability to align their style with the situation on hand, that made them succeed.
To be able to adjust to people and situations and respond accordingly, one needs one strong trait – of Being Mindful.
Becoming Mindful in Interactions
“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”, is not just Newton’s third law of motion. It is as much applicable to human interactions.
For example, you politely request for some help, you get one kind of a response. The same request if made as a demand or entitlement, will evoke another kind of a reaction. You put out a logical explanation, it would show a third kind of response. You build a better personal connect with the concerned person, the response is even better.
In human behaviour it is also called the law of Karma.
When will the polite style work? When does one need to be demanding? And when must one sit through a discussion to get some action happening?
Likewise, when should one set aside time to connect with the team, clients or others in an informal way and improve one’s equations?
This needs an ability to be mindful of situations and the people involved, to enable a conscious adoption of an appropriate style.
Effective management involves being sensitive to others involved; doing things in a way such that, relationships are not affected negatively, while achieving results. This is because relationships with internal teams or external entities are critical for business sustainability.
A lot of deals and understandings happen or don’t happen precisely because of this fact. Ensuring that a majority of the interactions are successful is the cornerstone of managerial/entrepreneurial success; be it interactions with customers, investors, vendors or one’s own team members.
Being Mindful about the people involved is therefore critical to success.
Being Mindful about Situations
Similarly, the need to be mindful to situations is critical. The world around us is constantly changing. It could be the environment or the political situation; or economic and/or technological changes that are happening around us.
Business is all about delivering on customer needs. Consumer behaviour changes in response to all the above mentioned external changes. That triggers responses by all those affected.
Those who move to adapt quickly, stay on track; those who don’t, lose out; till they wake up to the new reality.
How do some people react faster and better than others? The answer – they are mindful to the present situation.
Being mindful to changes ensures that we react on time. This in turn ensures the following –
- Our creative thinking is focussed towards objectives relevant to the present context and the future potential from here.
- Our understanding of customer needs is more accurate, thus helping design more appropriate products and processes.
- Being mindful gives us clarity of purpose and thus builds the enthusiasm to go ahead.
- We communicate and respond more mindfully, thus keeping the team and other involved people better connected with us and our goals.
- All the above create greater positivity in our mindset since there is greater hope due to clarity of direction.
- Lastly, mindfulness enables resilience; since we spot the impending issues early, are able to think through solutions and the positivity drives us to make effective changes.
Becoming a Mindful Management Professional/Entrepreneur
How does one learn to become mindful? Becoming a mindful manager/entrepreneur involves understanding oneself and others; and learning to take the pauses required before acting.
As we get aware of our own patterns of behaviour, we start getting answers to what drives us; what is stopping us; and what is it that could be done differently.
While all of us have the capability to be mindful, most of us do not consciously practice it. However, like many other behavioural skills, mindfulness can be learnt and practised by making an effort to formally learn it.
Training programs on Self Awareness, Mindfulness and Meditations provide the break required to understand oneself and how to become more Mindful.
Become Mindful of your own needs to improve your core traits. Take that much needed break and set aside time for your own personal development.
If you wish to learn more about becoming a mindful professional, do write to us at contact@infinumgrowth.com. InfinumGrowth provides training programs, Coaching, Counselling and Psychotherapy services delivered by experienced professionals.
Please do leave your comments at the bottom and do share with others if you like this article.
Wonderful article. The deliverables are so clear and universal. Styles of leadership can be different. Understanding one’s own strengths, nature is most important rather than cloning done successful people.