Entrepreneur vs Manager

The top 15 qualities needed to be an entrepreneur and the top 10 qualities needed to be a manager is listed as follows. This is a summary of the results yielded by the most popular search engine, Google. Not surprisingly most of the qualities needed for an entrepreneur and for a manager matched. This fundamentally shows that in a way, the manager of today needs to be an entrepreneur. It is evident that the degree or extent to which an entrepreneur needs the aforementioned quality may be different.

An entrepreneur may need greater depth in certain qualities as compared to a manager. Let us take the example of a quality like confidence, an entrepreneur must have the confidence to support the entire business venture he is planning to undertake and also support all the needs of all his staff while a manager can get away with confidence enough to manage the staff and situations. Apart from this an entrepreneur needs to have certain qualities and certain qualities in certain amounts, the absence of which fails to make an entrepreneur.

For example an entrepreneur cannot be born if he is not able to take and handle risks, while a manager can be successful even if he is risk averse to an extent. An entrepreneur would not find switching to a managers role difficult as he would have almost all the important qualities a manager needs. The only issues may be in the operational aspect with respect to the degree of freedom an entrepreneur exercises as compared to that of a manager. The manager today needs to have the skills of an entrepreneur. This is easy to say as mentioned earlier the qualities almost completely overlap.

At the same time the manager has also got to know to what degree he must possess an entreprenuer’s skills and to what extent he must exercise them. For example there is a greater degree of security for a manager as compared to an entrepreneur and there is no need to destabilize or jeopardize the situation with excessive risk taking. This may also make employees who works under the manager feel insecure. This degree of risk may be unwarranted for the organization as they would have a calculated risk approach. So the manager must be cautious.

But this pays off at the higher levels. As the manager inches toward the top levels of management the set of entrepreneurial qualities like risk taking pays well and in fact makes all the difference with respect to performance. Hence the skill set of an entrepreneur applies to a manager in a phased manner. Some of the best managers along and their entrepreneur skills are listed as under. There are numerous such examples of managers achieving enormous success because of their entrepreneurial skills. In fact these skills are what made the difference.

They have literally created a turn-around in the state of the organization. For example, Anne Mulcahy joined Xerox in August 2001. At that time the company was reeling under tremendous pressure with charges from Securities & Exchange Commission over accounting practices. The biggest problem faced by the company was in $14 billion in debt. However she made sharp staff and business cuts and brought new chief financial officer and stabilized the company and put down debt to around $9. 8 billion. She achieved this with her leadership and sense of confidence.

Skills needed for both entrepreneurs and leaders alike. The skills prominent in an entrepreneur, the skills which sets apart an entrepreneur when possessed by a manager is what saves the manager from a crisis or a tough situation. It helps the manager steer clear of problems in an effective manner. Managing problems and changes is an integral part of problems for the role of a manager. The more the entrepreneurial qualities embedded in a manager the more effective he is in dealing with tough situations and problems of a kind.

It is what pushes them up the ladder, makes them different from the rest of the crowd and has them endlessly and effortlessly facing challenges thrown up. Such managers are highly prized in the industry and make a critical difference especially at the top rung of the ladder. It is not just confined to the top rung of the ladder. It is essentially what moves the manager up the ladder and initially what sets him apart to be chosen as a manager. In short, the manager of today needs to be at least a MINI entrepreneur at the start of his career and blossom as a MEGA entrepreneur at the pinnacle of their career of the manager.