The 10 Most Important Behavioral Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship is all the rage these days, with social media popularizing the term through and through. You have so many innovative startup gurus online, that you lose track of the things that truly count. The core genetic encoding of an entrepreneur is still hustle and hard work. While everything else is sugar coated under the guise of dreams and passion, there are some core traits that every entrepreneur needs to have.

These traits may seem obtuse at first, but if you self-reflect and look really deep inside your mindset, you can locate the flaws in your thinking and correct them before they become chronic.

These are the top 10 behavioural traits that entrepreneurs need to have –

#1 Discipline – Its important to stay consistent and disciplined throughout the entrepreneurial journey. You can’t waver your focus in hopes that you will pursue multiple passions at one time. You need to discipline yourself to following one type of format and one routine. Entrepreneurs who are most productive, often wake up before the sun rises and get more work done in 8 hours than most people do in 8 days. That’s what makes them unique.

#2 Grit – An underlying theme of many researchers’ findings, grit has been shown to be a significant factor when it comes to success in entrepreneurship.

There are those that bite the bullet and create change in their industry, but there are many who do what’s always been done. To become a more successful entrepreneur, you need to have grit – which is a combination of skill and purpose. When you have a goal in mind, how much effort do you put in before giving up?

#3 Communication – Often times, entrepreneurs need a confidence boost before going on stage, or while prepare online communication materials. They ponder over what they’re going to say or how they’ll approach investors. This is where the core skill of communication comes in, as its so important to becoming a startup founder. When you can communicate your ideas, your passion and your fire, you can become a more successful startup founder.

#4 Mentorship – Being a mentor to someone is one of the most fulfilling practises that an entrepreneur can engage in. But few people are actually open to being mentored. You need to find a mentor who has been through the ropes, so that you can learn from them going forward. It doesn’t hurt to have a second opinion on things, and a great mentor can be someone who can rapidly enhance your learnings multifold.

#5 Criticism – You must be able to criticize your assumptions and ideas constructively. This also involved opening yourself up to criticism from your customers and your shareholders. You can keep an open ear on things, but in the end it's your call – as to how you want to take things ahead. Feedback and criticism are stepping stones towards your own personal development. Keep this fact in your mind, the next time you’re in a meeting or pitching your ideas.

#6 Listening – A lost art in the sands of time, is listening. Very few people nowadays actually listen to what their industry has to say, let alone the competition. Listening is important when pitching to clients, learning from mentors, or prepare a business plan for your company.

When you can listen without judgement, you can store that information for later retrieval. This also allows you to understand insights deeper when you’re alone in your office space or workstation. You can take in insights better and prepare strategies that are based on listening to the client rather than speaking over them to prove supremacy.

#7 Humility – Often times, you’ll be challenged time and time again. This is important to note as it’s the defining moment in most entrepreneurs’ lives. When facing tough situations, whether its compliance, industry disruption or competition, you must have enough humility to make things right.

You also must never lose your temper or be rude to someone on the basis of their actions of words. When you think about the long-game instead of just the here and now, you can easily switch over to a progressive mindset which allows you to remain humble in the face of adversity.

#8 Networking – An undervalued skill in our time, networking is key to building greater relationships. When you can network with the types of people you want to be working with, you get deeper insights into the way that they think and interact with the world. This also helps in building greater connections that last a lifetime in your professional life. Networking has been proven to be the greatest trait needed for business development and profile enhancement for yourself and your company. When you can participate in networking events and seminars, you can build up what’s lacking and meet new partners as well.

#9 Curiosity – There is an untrue saying that curiosity kills the cat. The opposite is true. When you are curious about the world and about nature, you can learn new insights that your competition doesn’t. If you are genuinely curious about your customers, suppliers and partners, then you can engage with them at a deeper level. Customer curiosity is one of the biggest factors when it comes to business success, leading everyone to having a more synchronous professional career.

#10 Hard-Work – Another underrated skill to possess, hard work is one of the biggest reasons why some entrepreneurs succeed, and others don’t. When you can devote your life to a single purpose and fulfil that every day, that’s hard work. That kind of dedication takes time and practise, as well as energy that’s spent in a positive manner. If we laze around all day and don’t work on our dreams then as entrepreneurs, we will succumb to failure.

Conclusion

There is a lot of noise around what entrepreneurs should and shouldn’t do. At the end of the day, having these 10 traits will make your journey that much simpler. As an entrepreneur, you will be facing a lot of uncertainty and challenges.