Leadership and Entreprenuership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Leadership and Entreprenuership - Essay Example d as â€Å"a multidimensional concept encompassing the firm’s actions relating to product-market and technological innovation, risk taking and proactiveness† (Kellermans & Eddleston, 2006). Thus an entrepreneur is a person who is prepared for new challenges, face adversities, take risk and achieve profits by identifying opportunities and utilizing the resources available. Leadership has been defined as â€Å"natural and learned ability, skill and personal characteristics to conduct interpersonal relations, which influence people to take desired actions (Eric, n.d.). Thus effective leadership requires accomplishment and influencing. Leadership requires trust and commitment of others, which they can achieve through their own behavior and integrity. Leaders create and deal with change; leadership requires vision, direction, strategies, motivation and inspiring. While both entrepreneurship and leadership have certain traits in common, not all of the leadership traits are n ecessary in an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship to a large extent relies on leadership. Jong and Hartog (2003) have reviewed various definitions of leadership and conclude that three main elements: ‘group’, ‘influence’ and ‘goal’ make a leader. These three elements are related to an entrepreneur who can influence his co-workers with the intermediate goal of enhancing their innovative behavior in order to improve the number and quality of innovations and eventually firm performance. Entrepreneurial attitude can be measured in terms of achievement, innovation, personal control, self esteem, and opportunity recognition (Lindsay, 2005). Lindsay further clarifies that innovation includes recognizing and acting upon business activities in new and unique ways. Achievement can be associated with business start-up and growth results, while self-esteem includes self-confidence. Personal control involves individual perceptions of control and influence over business affairs. Creativity is one of key