Everybody at some point has had to depend on the leadership and guidance of another person. As kids we had our parents and teachers, then our professors and eventually for some people their Boss’s. This idea of being guided and supervised by someone else is perfectly normal in human societies. It won’t be strange to see a 45 year old manager under the guidance of a CEO. This General dependency on the leadership and guidance of others makes stepping into a leadership role an adjustment for many. Leadership is a different game entirely, and requires a different mindset and set of skills. Most people would however tell you that the adjustment into a leadership position isn’t impossibly difficult, especially with the right guidance. However, I would like to make a slight distinction in leadership. There is leading other people and there is personal leadership i.e. leading you. Both could be challenging and are important to entrepreneurial success; however I would like to focus on personal leadership in this blog entry.
Personal leadership is the most critical to entrepreneurship. An acceptable definition of entrepreneurship is “being your own boss”. When we decide to become entrepreneurs we implicitly accept the responsibility of being our own Boss. We decide to manage our time, results, input, attitude and a whole range of factors which determine success. There is no one to ensure you make deadlines, or no one to punish you if you fail to perform. This task of becoming one’s own boss could really be a challenge, especially for many of us who have being under the guidance and supervision of others for most of our lives. The CEO plays a very important role in the success or failure of a company. It is his or her responsibility to ensure that all that is required to make the business succeed is in place. Often time’s people would tell you the difference between good and bad companies is the CEO. As your own boss, your effectiveness is essential to the success of your business. It is possible to get an experienced CEO to manage your company for you, but many entrepreneurs can’t afford to do this at the start. Most entrepreneurs have to step into the role of CEO, and do a good job at it for them to succeed. If you were the CEO of a company of 20 staffs, would you condone your staff chatting or watching TV all day at the office? My guess is probably not. So why do condone your slacking in your business? My point is, it could be harder to lead yourself than it is to lead others. Have you defined your working hours? And do you stick to it? You probably think letting your staff watch TV in the office is bad for business, so why do you as your only employee do it? I.e. if you do
The relative difficulty of personal leadership is in my opinion one of the reasons many people find it hard to be entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship isn’t just about good ideas; it also entails personal accountability and leadership. This ability to effectively lead yourself is the product of a good character. I think the starting point for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur is to develop a good Character. The topic of character isn’t something I can fully touch on in this blog entry. It would be a recurring theme on the NGG blog. There are various components of a good character, and of course this is a very subjective idea. I would like to briefly touch on one accept of a good character, which is, “personal integrity”. By personal integrity, I mean doing what you say you would do. A person with a high personal integrity takes themselves seriously enough not to fail to do what they have told themselves they would do. This way the CEO, which is you is getting more authority and can become more effective. If you have developed the habit of doing what you say you would do, then as your own CEO you tell yourself no missing deadlines and you are bound to stick with it. I consider personal integrity to be a skill, and just like every skill it is developed by practice. One way to develop this skill is by setting goals and ensuring you stick to them. Gradually one develops the ability and discipline to do what you tell yourself you would do. Setting goals is very important in developing personal integrity, because it gives us something to measure and be accountable to. Start today by setting small goals and ensure you accomplish them. It certainly feels good when you accomplish something you set out to do, but most importantly it is essential to being an entrepreneur.