Leadership Qualities

Cory Findlater

Professor Bill Rossi

ENT 3003 – Principles of Entrepreneurship

October 8, 2012

Qualities of a Leader

Leadership is an important component of business, and can be the difference maker between successful and unsuccessful companies. Through guidance and motivation, an effective leader can propel a business and its employees to achieve a common set of goals or mission. Without effective leadership, businesses can lose focus and stray away from its primary objectives. Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady, stated that “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” When looking for an effective business leader, there are three qualities that are important for every business leader to have. Business leaders should be innovative, customer-focused, and ambitious.

Innovation is the development of new customer value through solutions that meet new needs, unarticulated needs, or old customer and market needs in new ways. Co-founder and former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs once stated that “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” In the rapidly shifting markets of today, innovation allows companies to gain market advantages and produce new benchmarks for other companies to follow. With the expansion of the global market and outsourcing, companies have focused on innovation as a method of gaining competitive advantages in different areas of its supply chain. Effective leaders can use innovation to find new opportunities for the present and new paths for the future.

When entrepreneurial leaders are customer-focused, they understand that without customers, the business could go nowhere. Customer-focused leaders try and create the ultimate experience for their customers, starting from within the organization and through to the product. Leaders that are customer-focused learn new ways to both satisfy customers and employees. Many business leaders...