nine Leadership Characteristic

1: Self-Esteem Underlying everything is a high sense of one's own self-worth. Without that, individuals will never undertake tough challenges. If one does not have it, it's important to develop self-esteem.

2: Need to Achieve This need has been associated with entrepreneurs and leaders who constantly seek to perform at their best Individuals high in this need are open to feedback, are goal oriented, seek to be unique, and strive for accomplishments based on their own efforts—characteristics important to effective leadership. They also take risks, not extreme risks, but moderate ones. And what is moderate risk? Moderate risk means you have the ability to influence events, but don’t have complete control. The key is that individuals believe they will be successful, but it is not a sure thing.

3: Screening For Opportunity. Like all individuals, leaders screen incoming information to separate the useful from the useless. However, successful entrepreneurs and business leaders screen incoming information to constantly seek new growth opportunities. They act like gold miners who must shift through tons of dirt to find those a few precious golden nuggets.

4: Locus of Control Successful leaders and entrepreneurs typically show a high internal locus of control (Lee, 2001). In many different studies done over the years, those with a high internal locus of control are more likely to experience success, than individuals who are high on the external locus of control. When someone perceives events as under the control of others, fate, luck, the system, their boss, etc. they have an external locus of control. Individuals high on the internal locus of control have a different assumption about how the world works. They assume that any success they experience is due to their personal efforts and that they have the ability to influence events. Interestingly, internal also assume failure was also their fault.

5: Goal Orientation Businesses come and go, but those that last always share a common characteristic with their founder—a relentless drive to accomplish goals. They understand what the priorities are and continue to work at toward that goal, day in and day out.

6: Optimism Underlying successful entrepreneurial leadership is a boundless font of optimism that never seems to end. When faced with a problem, they view it as a challenge. When faced with a setback, they view it as a new direction, when told no, they say, “Maybe not now, but I know you’ll change your mind later.” This characteristic contrasts sharply with the vast majority of people who project a more pessimistic, defeatist quality. It’s this belief in the positive that serves as the foundation for dealing with the many set-backs one will inevitably encounter in the world of business.

7: Courage Many professors talk about entrepreneurs as risks takers. But this leadership characteristic is like saying snow is cold—it's accurate but missing something. Another way is to say the same thing is that one must have guts. It requires a great deal of courage to build a company from the ground up.

8: Tolerance to Ambiguity This term refers to a person’s tolerance to uncertainty and risk. Entrepreneurs generally score high on this scale As we age, we have a tendency to be more comfortable repeating a relatively small set of behaviors. For example, we eat pretty much the same food, shop in the same stores, watch the same programs, have lunch with the same people, and listen to the same music. etc. One may change jobs, but rarely does one change industries. Its’ amazing how many people end up retiring in the same industry in which they got their first job.

9: Strong Internal Motivation—the “Fire Inside" The motivation that drives our behavior comes from two sources: internal (intrinsic) and external (extrinsic). Intrinsic factors include constructs like needs, desires, motives, and will power. Extrinsic factors include any type of motivational influence from the environment such as rewards and punishments. For entrepreneurs, the most important motivational factor is the intrinsic one. Entrepreneurs keep going despite the fact that employees tell them they are foolish, friends say they are wasting their time, and family tells them to get a real job. When the intrinsic drive goes away, so does any chance of success.