What character traits are needed for business. Character Traits Every Entrepreneur Should Possess

Each person decides to start their own business for different reasons. Some are attracted by financial independence, because the income of a businessman is much more than the earnings of an employee. Other people are more attracted to independence, the absence of a boss who would have to report to hired work. Others are forced to start their own business by the environment - if many friends have already got their own company, then you don’t want to lag behind them. You have to find your niche and start working in the field of entrepreneurship.


Of course, in fact, there are even more reasons, because a lot of people want to go. But it is worth noting that not everyone succeeds in this field. It is especially difficult in the first year of operation, when the company is still young. There are almost no clients, and there is no fame in the market either. Success depends both on external circumstances and on the mood of the entrepreneur himself. His character, ability to withstand stress and quickly adapt to constantly changing conditions become the most important success factors.


Companies, even having successfully worked on the market for a couple of years, may close due to the fact that the business owner could not assemble a team of professionals under his supervision, could not agree with a partner, could not distribute finances, did not determine priorities in the activities of the company, etc. Here it turns out that the personal qualities of an entrepreneur have a great influence on the business. A businessman can avoid almost all problems if he possesses the following qualities of character.


There are people in whom many qualities useful for an entrepreneur are present from birth. Nature has not rewarded others with such outstanding data, but you don’t need to get upset or give up on your desire to open a business. The most important thing is to correctly determine which qualities are worth developing.


Decisiveness and responsibility of a businessman


Every entrepreneur must be determined. You can have far-reaching plans, be quick-witted and smart. But what is the use of this if the plans remain on paper or in the head due to the indecision of a person? Any businessman should be able to make decisions quickly and accurately. This quality of character can be called the basic characteristic of any successful entrepreneur. Changes in the world occur very quickly, and it is decisiveness that allows you to quickly respond to events and make an adequate decision.


Responsibility is another very important quality for a businessman. It is the full acceptance of responsibility for their actions that helps aspiring entrepreneurs become successful businessmen. Fear of responsibility destroys the most promising projects. It must be understood that from the moment the company is opened, only the owner of the enterprise is responsible for his employees and the business itself. Everyone must choose for himself what is closer to him - to work at an enterprise for hire or become the owner of a business.


Purposefulness of a businessman


This quality can be safely attributed to the basic ones. All the richest people became successful because they followed their dreams, despite the fact that they often met obstacles along the way, heard refusals. Purposeful people see their goals, falls and losses do not stop them on their way. By developing a sense of purpose, you can make doing business interesting and profitable.


Caution and foresight of the entrepreneur


Since business is a risky business, reasonable caution is welcome. Everyone knows that it is necessary to read documents carefully before signing them. Decisions must be made with a cold head. Caution and a balanced approach to solving emerging problems will make the life of a businessman more predictable and comfortable.


Foresight is also a necessary quality. It allows you to predict the development of the situation, plan further actions several steps ahead. A careful analysis of the situation and a correct understanding of the events taking place on the market help a businessman to emerge victorious from any situation.


Communication, leadership and team management skills


Communication is an important quality that every businessman should develop. The presence of connections allows you to make life more comfortable, makes it possible to establish strong relationships with partners. It is much easier to do this if the owner of the enterprise is able to win over people, can establish good relations with others.


Leadership qualities and the ability to lead a team are very important. The leader always acts effectively, his subordinates are organized, they know exactly what actions the management expects from them. Competent organization of work of employees of the enterprise is the key to high results in the work of the company.

What qualities should an entrepreneur have? The answer to this question is very simple - all the qualities of a normal person, and a little more. This “beyond that” always determines the professional feature and life position. Therefore, another question arises: is an entrepreneur a profession, a way of life or a field of activity?

Entrepreneur - who is it?

An entrepreneur is a person who, at his own peril and risk, carries out commercial activities in the fields of production, services or trade. At the same time, it does not specify what a person produces, what he sells and what services he provides. Therefore, an entrepreneur is not a profession, although it can be a matter of a lifetime. This is a way of self-realization using your professional knowledge, skills and abilities.

An entrepreneur is a person who carries out his activities legally and legally.

This means that its activities, carried out in various formal frameworks, are aimed not only at making profit and its constant increase, but also at fulfilling obligations to the state. The guarantor of the latter is the legal registration of the businessman's activities.

If commercial activity is carried out without legal registration and fulfillment of obligations to the state, then this is no longer commerce, but illegal entrepreneurship, punishable in accordance with the Criminal Code.

Thus, an entrepreneur is a person who can organize commercial activities within the legal framework and combine personal interests with the interests of the state.

What an entrepreneur should know and be able to do

Not everyone can be an entrepreneur. Not everyone is given to take responsibility for the activities of an entire organization.

To whom is the entrepreneur responsible?

  1. In front of you: your financial well-being, self-esteem, self-respect, etc.
  2. Before his family and all those who entrusted him with their fate.
  3. To the state in the form of mandatory payments.
  4. Before his employees, who entrusted him to manage the results of their work.
  5. To a society that needs the results of the work of an entrepreneur.

The entrepreneur must understand his production. It was in Soviet times that it was possible for an entire caste of managers to exist without specific occupations. In business, you need to know what you are doing. This is especially true for small businesses.

However, whether you produce rubber boots, high-precision equipment or grow potatoes, you must be a lawyer and financier. And it would be good to understand the general theory of systems, because business is a system, and all systems are arranged in the same way.

And you also need to know geography, logistics, exchange rates, credit conditions, as well as the names of suppliers, intermediaries, wholesalers, etc.

What are the personality traits of an entrepreneur?

As follows from the above, an entrepreneur is someone who always has a sense of responsibility. However, this is a man, and nothing human is alien to him.

“This is a business - nothing personal” - this phrase was coined by people who see business as a war of machines, and not a sphere of creation in a society of people. It is machines in human form that have nothing personal, but only a calculator. While the calculator was invented by people so that he would help them, and not replace them.

If we proceed from the fact that each person is a person, then the qualities of an entrepreneur are nothing more than the qualification requirements for a person engaged in specific activities.

Such a person should be:

  1. Responsible. This means that the entrepreneur himself is primarily responsible for every event in his field of activity. Of course, every event is created by a lot of people, but in their business, all the bumps go to the entrepreneur first.
  2. Enterprising. Business, by definition, is one continuous initiative, which is a continuation of the theme of responsibility.
  3. Independent. This does not mean that the entrepreneur is always the only warrior in the field, but it is necessarily the commander leading the army ahead on a dashing horse.
  4. Personnel management specialist. The personal qualities of an entrepreneur are formed in society, among people. In whatever area of ​​industry, services or trade a businessman works, he always works with people. You can’t know and be able to do everything, but you definitely need to be able to build relationships with people and competently force them to do what is necessary for the functioning of the business. The best way to tell a good manager from an assertive one is to look at how his organization works in his absence. If the head went on vacation or on a business trip, and the institution continues to work as before, then this is an indicator of the literacy of the businessman's actions to build his organization. But if the queue of suffering approvals, advice, orders and permissions is constantly trampled in the waiting room, then something is wrong in this kingdom.
  5. Capable of taking risks, but always within reason. In market conditions, any business carries risk, but only such a business becomes sustainable, where the risk is a balanced decision with several unknowns, and not a nervous twitch or a game of roulette.
  6. Efficient, hardworking and even a workaholic. A businessman is a way of life of a hard worker, often not entitled to days off.
  7. An experienced person both in the professional sphere and in life problems.
  8. Constantly learning new things. This quality is based on the need to constantly learn something new in the field of your business. However, you can't learn new things and not be curious. Curiosity is an irrational desire to find out what seems to be not necessary to know. But there is no unnecessary knowledge - there is only knowledge that has not yet found application.
  9. Free from stereotypes and constant desire to be like everyone else.
  10. Emotionally stable. A nervous, yelling at subordinates entrepreneur will either undermine health or ruin the business, and possibly both. It is believed that all entrepreneurs have one quality in common - fear of the future. However, this is rather a myth: a person who undertakes something at his own peril and risk cannot be afraid of the future all the time. Fear kills the future, translating it into the present, and then into the past.
  11. Able to plan their activities and the work of their production. In modern conditions of market time pressure, there are two elephants that carry any business. This is forecasting and planning. Without them, business turns into a card game, where both winning and losing become equally probable.
  12. Self-disciplined and motivated. Poor is the owner of a shoe repair booth who does not dream of a shoe factory. But that dreamer is bad who does not act daily and every minute. A non-dreaming and inactive businessman is nonsense.

It is possible to list all the properties by which an entrepreneur differs from “ordinary” people ad infinitum. Meanwhile, this is just a person who takes actions to ensure his economic self-employment. That's all.

Businessman: stereotypes and prejudices

An entrepreneur is a father, mother, son, daughter, a good or bad person, a connoisseur of beauty and a lover of travel.

He combines the features of an ordinary and unusual person. He is haunted by stereotypes and prejudices.

Many by the word "businessman" necessarily mean:

  • wealth (even if a person barely makes ends meet);
  • the cynicism and ruthlessness of a shark that devours everyone who does not devour it;
  • exorbitant spending on excesses;
  • excitement and cruelty;
  • neglect of the needs of society and people who do not benefit the business;
  • a criminal who fully corresponds to the definition of K. Marx (there are no such crimes that a capitalist would not commit for the sake of profit);
  • a person who saves on personnel, the ecological environment, life safety for the sake of profit and endlessly growing profit;
  • a man who constantly plays hide-and-seek with the state.

But all these stereotypes are the opposite of the main characteristic of an entrepreneur - responsibility.

Want to start your own business but don't know where to start? Are you sure that you can lead people and take full responsibility? Business is not only a good monthly income, but also problems, the solution of which is a heavy burden on the shoulders of the owner. What qualities a businessman should have in order to be able to stay afloat and build his own empire? Read about it below. Consider some of the qualities a businessman needs.

purposefulness

A person must see the goal in front of him. Is always. It is she who will help him get out of bed in the morning and go to work. It's easy to be upbeat and cheerful when things are going well in life, but maintaining a positive attitude when things aren't going as smoothly as you'd like is the real art.

Purposefulness is the quality of a businessman that helps him create not a small rural store, but a whole network of food supermarkets throughout the country. A person should always be able to plan and, achieving one goal, set another. If he does this, the business will grow.

How do you develop self-awareness? You need to set goals for yourself every month, and then achieve them. Small victories will cheer up a person and demonstrate to him that much can be achieved in life if you really want something.

Ability to distinguish between important and unimportant

A person who knows what he wants is a good businessman. But often people are immersed in everyday problems and cannot see the impending storm behind their heap. The ability to "go out onto the balcony" is a useful quality for a businessman. A person should be able to abstract from the situation and look at his life as if from the outside. It is difficult to solve problems when you are directly in them. After all, it is not in vain that they say that it is always more visible from the outside. So try to look at your life from the outside from time to time. For example, do this every week. In this case, you will not have problems that you could not see in advance. And if something unexpected happens, you can easily solve the problem. All this is not necessary in order to reduce the weight of the daily routine. Daily tasks should also be done in a timely manner. You just don't have to focus on them.

Self confidence

One of the important qualities of a businessman is self-confidence. A person with low self-esteem will not be able to achieve much. He will always worry about what people will say about him, or how his friends will interpret his actions. A self-confident person will not be afraid of being misunderstood. A businessman must make decisions based on his own desires and thoughts. You can listen to an opinion from the outside and think about its veracity, but you should not blindly trust even those who want you well.

The confidence of a person is always felt. And after 5 minutes of conversation, the nature of confidence becomes clear. Indeed, unlike a person trying to impress, a true leader will not play. He will be free and uninhibited. This captivates and helps a person to do business with the same self-confident people.

A responsibility

What is the difference between a leader and an ordinary person? The first person is able to take responsibility, and the second is not. Many people are afraid of responsibility. Her load sometimes seems incredibly heavy. A weak person cannot be held accountable for his ideas or actions. It is often difficult to find someone to blame in the office. People toss responsibility like a soccer ball. Sometimes it even comes to the point of absurdity. A person may not begin to perform the task assigned to him, as he is afraid that he will not be able to cope with it.

Responsibility is the quality of a good businessman. A person who knows how to be responsible for his actions and can frankly admit his mistakes is worthy of respect. A businessman should be just like that. And you need to understand that all people are different. And if individuals who cannot cope with the set goal work in the office, the businessman will have to be responsible for their mistakes and shortcomings.

Determination

Are you a determined and strong-willed person? Then you can go into business. It takes determination to create your own business and then grow it successfully. Remember the movie "About businessman Foma". The good qualities in the protagonist are his confidence in his own undertaking. Making the difficult decision to start a business is half the battle. You must have the courage to make big decisions as your business expands. Many businessmen do not want to expand their business because they are afraid of the unknown. What if they take a risk and lose everything that they have gained long and hard. If you are afraid that this fate will befall you, then you may not even start. A businessman should not be afraid to lose everything. And more often than not, the people who built the world's corporations have lost their entire fortune more than once. Opening a business the second time is easier than the first. Well, starting a business for the third time is already a familiar activity for any successful person.

Innovation

What are the qualities of a businessman? He is open to everything new. A person is not afraid to take risks and modernize his enterprise. You can work on old equipment for a long time, but by buying new machines, you can increase production, and with it profits. It is necessary to introduce all kinds of innovations from time to time. And you need to do it among the first, otherwise it will not be possible to become a leader in your field. Decisions should be not only quick, but also well thought out. Business is not gambling. Business can be compared to chess. You must think carefully about each move, but have the courage, if necessary, to do something that your opponent definitely does not expect from you. Surprising your competitors and customers is a vital necessity. Only flexible people who can quickly change the concept of a business based on market needs can stay afloat for a long time.

foresight

What distinguishes a simple man in the street from a businessman? Foresight. A person who knows how to look to the future will always be able to keep up with the times. It is difficult to build a world-class corporation if you satisfy only your momentary desires and whims. Having earned his first million, a businessman should put it into circulation, and not spend all the profit drinking cocktails in the Maldives.

What qualities can be considered necessary? Self-confidence, responsibility and vision. The last point is especially important. A person who looks to the future with optimism and hope will surely find success. But you should also write a plan that will help you stay on track and avoid many pitfalls.

Curiosity

What qualities should an entrepreneur have? He must be inquisitive. His circle of interests should be very wide. Does this seem strange? Not at all. When a person is interested not only in his narrow area of ​​specialization, but he is also open to information on other topics, his horizons become broad. Often, it is impossible to solve a problem based on knowledge from only one specific area. It is easier to approach the search for the optimal solution, relying on your large intellectual baggage.

A businessman should be guided by the rule - there is no superfluous knowledge. If you want to develop, then do not miss the opportunity to talk with representatives of different professions. You don't have to go deep into everything, but it will be useful to get a superficial knowledge of various subjects. Read popular magazines, watch TV shows of various genres and be open to the world.

Sociability

One of the qualities that a businessman needs is the ability to keep up a conversation. You should quickly and easily find common topics with absolutely anyone. This is where a broad outlook comes in handy. Your interlocutor will be pleased if you know at least a little about his hobby or profession. A person always likes those who share his interests. So if you want to gain confidence in the customer, be sure to prepare in advance for the meeting. Today, you can learn a lot about a person thanks to social networks. Find out in advance what your interlocutor is fond of, then it will be easier to carry on a conversation.

But even without pre-prepared topics, you should be able to talk to anyone you meet. And you need to ensure that your dialogue is always successful. This requires a lot of practice. Mastering the art of communication (contrary to popular belief) is not as easy as it seems. Therefore, to achieve a good result, you need to train every day. And for this, each person has a lot of opportunities.

State of emergency in our days can no longer be called something unusual and new. Why? Private enterprise has become accessible to most people. In addition, there is an opinion that each person is an entrepreneur in varying degrees, which depends on the level and quality of the actions performed by him. This suggests that it is quite important to know the secrets of the effectiveness and success of conducting an emergency, to have qualities that are paramount for an entrepreneur.

The first step is to understand the concept of "private entrepreneur". So, this is a person who carries out this or that activity for the purpose of making a profit. This definition is extensive, because today there is such an occupation as an individual entrepreneur (IP). This name must be used when registering with the tax authorities, carrying out their activities.

The above description of a private entrepreneur does not contain any information about what a person must be like in order for his entrepreneurship to bring success, as well as what character traits and personal qualities he must possess.

Many psychologists divide people into two main groups:

  • employers;
  • wage-earners.

So, for the first, the makings of a leader are inherent - responsibility, resistance to difficulties, organizational skills. The latter are characterized by the desire for a calm and measured life, avoidance of responsibility. Of course, the “employer” is the entrepreneur, because he is ready for a constant change of events, pursues his goals, plans their implementation.

Entrepreneurial activity can be described simply - it is a constant solution of certain problems that arise in the course of carrying out activities. Therefore, the ability to quickly get involved in the problem, find what is important in it and act in the right direction guarantees success. The ability of a person to identify the main issues and solve them without being distracted by everything else ensures positive results in his business. A person should direct his own actions to find the right solutions, calculate possible options, and choose the most effective ones.

In addition, it is necessary to work on obtaining and subsequently maintaining the reputation of an honest, responsible and decent person. Business is always scammers who tend to live in a fraudulent way, promote dishonest methods and schemes of activity. Such people do not think about the future and deprive themselves of any prospect for successful business development. An entrepreneur who plans to work for a long time must always be one step ahead and never forget about the coming of tomorrow. It is also important to remember that a damaged reputation is very difficult to recover, and sometimes it will take more than one decade.

What qualities should a successful businessman have?

Absolutely anyone can become an entrepreneur, but not everyone is successful in their activities. For this, motivation, interest, determination, responsibility and other qualities of character may not be enough. We must always remember that success comes only to those who
always doing something, constantly thinking about possible options for developing his own business, actively moving towards it, and not sitting still and waiting for something unusual to happen.

For a successful entrepreneur, certain qualities of character must be inherent, which are conventionally divided into:

  • personal;
  • business.

Each group is discussed in detail below.

Personal qualities

So, the following qualities of character will be useful for running a successful business:

  1. Interest, endless curiosity. The ongoing study of the world is an innate quality inherent in every person. There are people in whom it fades over time, and there are people who do not lose it all their lives. Many businessmen have been successful in the habit of asking themselves the question: what will happen if ...?
  2. Analysis of current events and the skill of comparing them with each other. Thanks to such character traits, a person is able to find cause-and-effect relationships, always be two steps ahead of his competitors, and predict further developments.
  3. Courage. The absence of fear significantly saves time that many people are used to spending on fears, reflections, and weighing. However, it is worth remembering that with such a tendency to act quickly and decisively, it is also important not to forget about caution, the ability to make informed decisions.
  4. Resourcefulness. This quality is quite important and useful. It allows you to quickly find the right solution in certain business conditions, as well as solve problems that appear completely unexpectedly, or avoid them altogether.

This is not the whole list of qualities that an entrepreneur should have, but they are basic and mandatory.

Business qualities

The most essential business qualities that successful entrepreneurs must possess are the following:

  1. Sociability. Establishing contact, finding a common language with any person gives certain advantages in business. Thanks to this quality, the entrepreneur conducts effective negotiations even with difficult partners, organizes information exchange, which is useful to both parties.
  2. Organizational skills. The most important quality, which, if a person has, helps him to correctly distribute the range of duties, draw up an action plan.
  3. Flexibility. If there are any problems, then with such a quality of character as flexibility, the entrepreneur will be able to look at the situation from the opposite side and find a compromise solution.
  4. Purposefulness, perseverance. Such a character trait at times increases the effectiveness of actions, while significantly reducing the time that insufficiently motivated people spend on solving certain issues in large quantities.
  5. Practicality. Thanks to practicality, a businessman skillfully optimizes costs and reduces the waste of resources that are irrational.
  6. Honesty. It makes no sense for a person to go into business without this character trait. Honesty is highly valued and valued by ordinary people. With a decent partner, clients do not worry about being deceived and, accordingly, return to him again and again. This ensures long-term cooperation.
  7. Confidence in your own success, strength. It makes no sense to waste your own time on worries and doubts about this or that decision. It is confidence in the successful resolution of any situation that helps the entrepreneur to concentrate on work, charge others with his own energy, and organize the most effective activity.

It is worth noting that it is quite difficult to meet a person who has all the listed qualities of character. Often, in the presence of at least three properties, a person is able to organize a successful business. The basic rule is the ability to correctly use directly what is available today.

The ability to accurately know your strengths and apply them with the greatest efficiency can also be attributed to the important and necessary qualities of an entrepreneur.

Today, being an entrepreneur is not just fashionable, it is quite commonplace. Everyone strives to open their own business, without even thinking about what qualities a person should have in order to achieve success in their own business. That is why nine out of ten people burn out on such attempts. Moreover, some scientists believe that only 8% of the country's population is able to run a successful business. Let's see what features of an entrepreneur help him survive in his market sector.

Who can be called an entrepreneur

Before analyzing the qualities of an entrepreneur, it is worth first understanding what we mean by this term. First of all, an entrepreneur is a person who is engaged in economic activity in any area. Its main goal is to benefit from this activity.

However, in reality, everything is not so simple. To really benefit, an entrepreneur must have deep knowledge from different areas, be a kind of generalist. He should be well versed in economics, jurisprudence, politics, and psychology. He must be able to establish connections with people who own capital, come up with innovations, know how to promote a product on the market.

As a result of such close cooperation, he will be able to survive any competition by introducing various innovations into the production or operation of the enterprise. This is why an entrepreneur is considered an innovator. By the way, to introduce these innovations, he must have enough powers and opportunities. That's why an entrepreneur needs freedom of action.

At the same time, he must constantly be aware of all production processes, changes in the market and other nuances of economic activity.

Portrait of an entrepreneur

Based on the foregoing, it is possible to lay down a certain portrait of an entrepreneur. This is an absolutely independent person who is unfamiliar with dependent moods. On the contrary, he himself is responsible for everything. Its scope includes:

  • determination of a suitable field of activity;
  • search for suppliers of raw materials, energy, fuel, and so on;
  • debugging distribution channels for goods;
  • rental of suitable premises;
  • market research;
  • product pricing and much more.

Confidence, gambling, riskiness - these are all the qualities that an enterprising person should possess. But at the same time, he does not rush to implement the idea as soon as it comes to his mind. He must think everything over, weigh and make the right decision.

There are also such qualities of an entrepreneur that help him achieve his goals. These are flexibility, mobility, reasonable risk, the ability to correlate theory with practice, and much more. An important element that includes a portrait of an entrepreneur is the personal qualities that a person who takes up business should have.

In general, it is extremely difficult to get a clear idea of ​​​​what an entrepreneur should be, since different areas of activity require a different approach to doing business. Sometimes some qualities can be of good service, and in other cases they can have a completely opposite result.

Nevertheless, we can name a certain list of qualities that a person engaged in such activities should possess. How they will manifest themselves in him depends on the specific situation, but he must be prepared for the fact that life will require them to manifest. So, these qualities include the following:

  • Organization is a fundamental quality not only for business. You can't achieve much without self-discipline and organization.
  • Sociability, which allows you to establish relationships with different, but necessary people for business. Business is a social enterprise, it cannot be built without people. In addition, it is built for people.
  • Thriftiness, practicality, the ability to act strictly according to the established plan.
  • Intuition, which sometimes helps better than any logic.
  • Observation, on which intuition is based. Being able to notice and analyze conditions, situations, factors, you give intuition the opportunity to suggest the most accurate solution.
  • Openness to innovation, the ability to see the future, understand the needs of society and implement them.
  • Self-analysis, which allows not only to correct the mistakes made, to prevent possible ones, but also to improve the course of a successful business.
  • Flexibility, which is essential in today's changing world. It is important to be able to adapt to new circumstances in time, to be able to find your own benefit and opportunities in them.
  • Reasonable risk. Today, there is fierce competition in almost every field. In order to survive in it, it is important to be able to take risks, but it must, above all, be reasonable.
  • Faith in one's own strength, success and prosperity. Without this, it is impossible to rise after the hard falls that are sure to happen on the way for every entrepreneur.
  • Creativity is the ability not only to think creatively, but to find non-standard solutions in difficult situations, new unusual ideas.
  • Lack of template thinking. This is akin to creativity, but it is important not only to find non-standard solutions, but also to be able to bring them to life. Sometimes it is difficult when everyone around expresses distrust and disbelief in your ideas. It is important to be able to implement them, no matter what.
  • Achievement of the goal, focus on results. A successful entrepreneur always has a clear goal in front of him and goes towards it, no matter what, using all the opportunities that come along the way.

Of course, this list can be continued indefinitely. Moreover, it is difficult to say that these are the most important qualities. Even with them, you will not get a 100% guarantee that you will be a successful entrepreneur. But by developing them, you will definitely qualitatively improve your life and advance your business. Over time, it is important to isolate the qualities that are required specifically for your business and develop them persistently.