Image by: Ludovic Hirlimann
By Todd Downey
Being a boss doesn’t come easy, and upon venturing down the road of company ownership, you may find that the tasks are quite a challenge to live up to. You’ve gotta deal with problems on corporate level, financial level and the general workplace skirmishes that arise from unhappy employees. Indeed tough, but to those of you with thick skin and experience with handling everyday annoyances, becoming a successful business owner should be well within your reach.
There are dozens of traits that prove to be useful when choosing this line of work, but most owners will probably tell you that they had very few of them before starting. Most people who start down this route are doing it on a completely blank slate, and eventually accumulate the desired traits to mold themselves into a pillar of innovation and leadership. It’s always good to get a good head start, though, and in case you’re wondering about some of the traits that are necessary for success, here are five of them you should keep in mind.
#1) Positive Mind
The most successful business owners are able to maintain a positive, stoic and rational mind and at all times, no matter what misfortunes or blunders plague the company he operates. An old European proverb suggests: “It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” And for a business owner, that applies all the more, as often times with the abundance of risks, interactions and moves you are going to have to make to advance the company, there will be a just as many progressions as there will be failures. And in order to handle whatever mishaps occur, a coherent, and innovative mind is necessary to keep the organization afloat.
#2) Discipline
Discipline is mainly about executing tasks assigned with decisive precision and staying focused on your core markets all while measuring your mistakes and implementing the results in future endeavors. With the development of a positive mind comes the breeding of discipline that emanates from the source (the owner) and spreads throughout the workplace like a contagious outbreak. Of course, if workers see the guy in charge working hard, accepting the full brunt of whatever mishaps my occur, and smiling while doing so, they will be that much more motivated to produce good results for their owner.
#3) Balance
We spoke of a positive mind, we spoke of discipline, now it’s time to discuss balance–work/life balance in particular. It is well known amongst entrepreneurs that people of their kind have a better shot of gathering clients if they are more social or interactive with those around them. This can mean through social media, advertising, or even day-to-day life.
Keeping a healthy balance by integrating your business life with your social life will undoubtedly add to you or your businesses popularity. Clients tend to become not just people you’re trying to squeeze a buck from, but friends; and co-workers become not “workers” who punch into your clock and drone their way through their shift, but family members striving to achieve a common goal.
#4) Daring
In order to progress with anything in life, sometimes we need to be okay with a little push out of our comfort zone. A successful owner didn’t discover his wealth by just sitting around and following the rules, but rather by taking calculated risks that result in new intelligence that leads to the advancement of the organization. Of course with risks come potential dangers are unsuitable to the company, but if it is being run by an owner who is positive, detail oriented and meticulous in the way he goes about taking the risk, then those negative occurrences will seem like nothing more than minor inconveniences.
Successful business owners often times have the confidence necessary to follow through with things like this, and most of the time is the reason why they are successful in the first place.
#5) Future Oriented
A man named Ben Krubski, who just happens to be among the most successful entrepreneurs as of late stated, “About 20 times a yeas, I get an opportunity to sit in a room with 10 or 15 small-business owners. When I ask them to define the future, almost all of them say something about it being what happens next. Even the brightest ones view the future as a set of circumstances imposed on passive bystanders. To be successful, you should recognize that you have control over your future.”
Strong words indeed, and i’m sure any owner of any company who is an avid believer of fate will sink into great detail about the problems with their organization. The fact is successful business owners always have a plan and have at least some general idea regarding their future–both short term and long term. Along with this, successful owners tend to anticipate how their industry will change and have the ability to produce a clear plan as to how they can adapt and take advantage of the ever changing market.
Are you a business owner who just happens to wield any of the distinguishable traits listed above? That’s great! Share with us exactly how it’s made you and your business successful in the comments section below.