I was musing this week with writer and frequent collaborator Tom Lowery about what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. He noted that over the years, he’s asked multiple of his fellow entrepreneur friends what it takes to be a success in their various endeavors. His circle of friends, as mine, are a diverse and largely creative bunch, and their businesses reflect that: a public relations firm, a restaurant, a pet supply shop, a law firm, a writer’s spa and an editing service. One of Tom’s friends is a voice-over artist; one is a painter and another is a model.
Others are members of the burgeoning “freelance society” in various fields, negotiating gigs and making contacts every day to secure future offers for more work. We noted that all of them have more than a few things in common – ability, experience, nerve, vision and tenacity, among other traits.
But the most successful among them have something else – grit.
“I never thought of entrepreneurship in quite this way until I read the TheSingle Biggest Factor VCs Look For InStartup Founders, by Josh Linkner,” said Tom. “The article got me thinking. I clicked the link and took the grit test and got 4.5 out of a possible 5.0 score. Not bad. I have the much needed grit. But what about other people?”
It's a Race
Starting and running your own business, we decided, is like a race. You learn how others do it, practice continually, keep in shape and most of all, try to stay ahead of the pack if you want to win. But you can't always be the winner.
What happens if you fail? Do you give up? Do you try better and fail better the next time? For prospective entrepreneurs, how does someone decide whether they have what it takes to survive outside of the 9 to 5 bubble? They might start by assessing themselves as follows:
- Can you overcome setbacks, or do you get easily discouraged?
- Do you stick with your projects or do you move on to new ones every few months?
- Are you obsessed for the long term, or do you lose interest after a while?
- Do you set and keep your goals, or do you toss and take on new ones regularly?
- Do you achieve your goals even when it takes years?
- Can you accept criticism without losing steam?
- Can your ego handle admitting you need help?
In other words, are you diligent or blasé? What about personal responsibility? Do you drink what you dump, or do you dump it on others? Are you confident, or do you smell of insecurity?
You can’t be thin skinned or faint of heart when you run your own show. You've got to have vision, stamina, creative thinking and, most of all, resilience. Even when your friends or family think you're nuts and do little or nothing to support or affirm your plans. Those are the fundamentals of being a great leader and entrepreneur. If you have them, you’re in good shape. If not, can you get them?
Born or made?
To examine this question, Tom provided me with some interesting research: In 2009, Annual Review of Psychology published an extensive study from The University of Nebraska – Lincoln. They examined authentic leadership and its development, new-genre leadership theories, complexity leadership, shared leadership, the role of relationships and the emerging work on followership. They also took into consideration work done on substitutes for leadership, servant leadership, spirituality and leadership, cross-cultural leadership and e-leadership.
Among their results –
- Approximately 30% of the variation in leadership style and emergence was accounted for by heritability
- The remaining variation was attributed to differences in environmental factors such as individuals having different role models and early opportunities for leadership development
- Most models of leadership have causal predictions
When examining evidence for Positive Leadership –
- Results showed that leadership interventions had a positive impact on work outcomes (e.g., ratings of leader performance), even when the duration of those interventions was less than one day
- Participants in the broadly defined leadership treatment condition had on average a 66% chance of positive outcomes versus only a 34% chance of success for the comparison group (that being those who went "untreated" for potential leadership training)
In short, leadership is not an exclusive club. Just because some of us may genuinely have “born leadership skills,” it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t learn how to become leaders or entrepreneurs.
With hard work, diligence and a fair shot at serious training – most of us can become good enough leaders to follow our dreams.
Said Tom, “My friends have become leaders – damned good ones. I’m a good one myself.”
We have grit. What about you?
Additional reporting for this article provided by writer and corporate training specialist Tom Lowery, Founding editor of Vox Universe and blogger at Thinking Out Loud.
