Leader: a person who guides or directs a group. Leadership Leader: a person who guides or directs a group.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation: How Leadership Style Makes the Difference ? Satyabir Bhattacharyya What is entrepreneurship? "Successful entrepreneurs do not wait for a bright idea to strike; they do not look for the big time innovation that will revolutionize the industry they are operating in nor do they work to create a multi-billion dollar business." Ideas with more modest pretensions may eventually turn out to be more successful than you can predict when created with the intention of creating value and making a tangible contribution. Successful entrepreneurs aim high, they try to create new and different value propositions or combine existing resources into more productive configurations. Entrepreneurship is hard work and it is to be treated as a duty and practiced.

Some of the key points to entrepreneurial management: view change as an opportunity rather than a threat Make innovation attractive to employees Recognize that all existing products/services/markets/distributions channels/processes/and technologies have limited health and life expectancies Reward and recognize positive work culture and practices.

Common traits among successful leaders include: Selecting and retaining the right executive team and reposing complete trust and confidence in them Clearly articulating your vision/overall objectives/and expectations thereof Providing suitable rewards and recognition for outstanding delivery and achievement of corporate objectives.

Growing Concerns Topics of Particular Interest to Owners and Managers of Smaller Businesses Edited by David E. Gumpert The five stages of small business growth By Neil C. Churchill and Virginia L. Lewis Style of the owner and financial circumstances are important to the success of a business  So are business size, diversity, complexity, management style, and organizational goals The 5 stages which small companies pass listed in this article include: Existence, Survival, Success, Take Off, and Resource Maturity

Opportunity Recognition as Pattern Recognition: How Entrepreneurs "Connect the Dots" to Identify New Business Opportunities Robert A. Baron Factors that play into recognition of opportunities for business ventures include: engaging in an active search for opportunities; alertness to opportunities (the capacity to recognize them when they emerge); and prior knowledge of a market, industry, or customer as a basis for recognizing new opportunities. "Pattern recognition is the process through which specific persons perceive complex and seemingly unrelated events as constituting identifiable patterns" - perceive links between seemingly unrelated events and changes.  These patterns then become the basis for identifying new business opportunities.  All aspects of an opportunity may not be initially recognized but if you proceed with what you do notice opportunity may be expanded or refined.

Exercise 1 Objective (s): To identify strategies to deal with negative employees How the author has used this exercise: One of the biggest problems of leaders is to deal with reports who are excessively negative.  Negativity can corrupt the work climate.   Activity Description: Ask participants to give examples of the damaging effects of negativity in the workplace. As a group, discuss the dozen negative “types” listed below. Then have participants brainstorm ways that leaders can handle each type. The goal is to end up with a list of helpful leadership strategies for dealing with negativity.

Negativity Types 1.       The Resisters--They rail against anything different 2.       The Wobbly —They are constantly shifting moods and expect others to adjust to them 3.       The Gossipers--They spread rumors and tell inappropriate personal tidbits 4.       The Blamers—They are constantly blaming others. 5.       The Victims—They believe people are out to get them 6.       The Adhesives--They can’t let go, even things that happened years ago 7.       The Pessimists--They always expect the worst case scenario 8.       The Boilers—They will blow over the slightest provocation 9.       The Complainers—They feel everything is wrong or will soon go wrong 10.    The Choosers—They are constantly pitting one group against another 11.    The Detached-- They feel most everything is dumb or beneath them 12.    The Self-Absorbed--They are constantly grabbing credit or attention

Options:  If you have the time, participants can develop their own list of negative types. Added thoughts or considerations:   Ask participants to give actual examples where they have used some of the strategies the group identifies.  The conversation will probably move to the question, "What to do with the individual who doesn't respond to the strategies?" 

Exercise 2 Objective (s): To build a leadership skills development plan. How the author has used this exercise: This activity can help bridge the gap between talking about leadership and actually doing something to improve leadership skills. Activity Description: Explain to the participants that they will build a personal leadership development strategy. Of course take some time to discuss why this is valuable and what they are to do with it. Then have them study the leadership skills below (provide a handout). Give the group a chance to add skills to the list. Once they have discussed the list, ask each person to individually select three that he or she feels need attention. Plug those three into the chart below and fill in the necessary information – an example is provided on the chart.

Options:  Participants may select a partner to check each other's progress.  This helps people stay on task once the meeting or workshop is over. Added thoughts or considerations:  Since skill development is ongoing, this sort of simple skills development plan should be repeated every quarter.