First used in 1723 to emphasize a willingness of the entrepreneur to assume risk and to deal with uncertainty, today the term entrepreneur implies qualities of leadership, initiative and innovation in business. Economist Robert Reich has called team-building, leadership, and management ability essential qualities for the entrepreneur. Some say the entrepreneur is a risk-taker while others consider the entrepreneur a “planner”. I say they must be both, to have ultimate success.
Ultimately the entrepreneur is defined as an individual who organises, develops or operates a business or businesses. Wikipedia says successful entrepreneurs have the ability to lead a business in a positive direction by proper planning, to adapt to changing environments and understand their own strengths and weakness. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator — a generator of new ideas and business processes. Management skill and strong team building abilities are often perceived as essential leadership attributes for successful entrepreneurs.
Being a leader in de-construction, an entrepreneur is willing and able to convert a new idea or invention into a successful innovation. Creative destruction is largely responsible for long-term economic growth, and entrepreneurs employ what another economist Schumpeter calls “the gale of creative destruction” to replace in whole or in part inferior offerings across markets and or industries, simultaneously creating new products and new business models.
Entrepreneurship, first coined in the 1920’s, is the process of starting a business or instigating a new idea, and we wrote about it in back in 2011 in Entrepreneurs In Business. Read More