What Makes a Successful Business Leader
When a business prospers, it’s easy to say that the company founder is a successful leader. Yet in most cases he or she developed the traits of successful leadership long before the company hired its first employee or made its first profit.
Ultimately, the company thrived because its founder was already thinking, acting, learning and adapting like a successful business leader.
In part, that is because success is a state of mind. Successful leaders are optimistic, seeing unlimited opportunities before them. They set clear goals and are ambitious, tireless, even relentless in pursuing them. They view failure as a chance to learn and regroup, rather than surrender. They have learned how to inspire others and build a team of winners.
Successful leaders share some recognizable traits. One author has described these winning variables as: creativity, dedication, determination, flexibility, leadership, passion, self-confidence and what many call “street smarts.” This includes emotional intelligence, intuition, cleverness and courage.
Noticeably absent from that list is a punch-clock mentality, a preference for “getting by,” or an intuitive sense of when the hour hand is poised to hit 5.
The great business leaders of our time are not gray-flannel-suit types that are obsessed with established routines and rules. They are not timid. Change doesn’t make them anxious; rather, it excites them. They see beyond the horizon, and color outside the lines.
Successful leaders dream of creating something of lasting value, but they are also disruptors. The rise of their company often leads to “creative destruction” in the marketplace. For the industries that are swept away by creative destruction, and the workers who depended on obsolete companies, this doesn’t seem like a good thing. But for economists, this is the way new opportunities and sometimes whole new sectors of the economy are created.
According to noted business management author Peter Drucker, the type of leader who brings about such dramatic transformation is a person who observes changes in markets or society, devises a way to meet any needs that result from these trends, and invents a unique way to profit from it. Such leaders are pioneers who create their own paths to success. They know that what worked in the past often won’t work tomorrow.
A restless spirit to discover opportunities and provide new market solutions is one reason the best entrepreneurs are often involved in many different projects at the same time. The corner shop becomes two, then a dozen, then a nationwide chain. The chain requires its own distribution network, its own fleet of trucks, its own diesel wholesaler. A visionary business leader sees each opportunity along the way, and the business continues to grow.
Although successful business leaders accumulate personal wealth and often a degree of fame, these are usually not the chief motivations that inspire their achievements. Successful leaders have a dream, and pursue it. They have new ideas, and bring them to market. They have a vision for the future, and make it real.
