Which of the following is not a personality trait or characteristics common among entrepreneur?

What does it mean to be a successful entrepreneur? Is it being a born go-getter? Is it having an extroverted personality? Is it being charismatic enough to persuade customers?

While some entrepreneurs hold these traits, they rarely define the characteristics of every successful entrepreneur. Not everyone is born with a drive to change the world. In fact, many successful entrepreneurs today are people who you may have underestimated in high school or college.

A living example of this is Bill Gates, who famously said, “If I had a dollar for every time someone made fun of me in high school—oh, wait. I do!”

Anyone can become a successful entrepreneur. However, there are a few key personality traits that all (or almost all) successful entrepreneurs have in common.

1. Robust Work Ethic

Successful entrepreneurs know a thing or two about work ethic. Most of the time, they’ll be the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave. If there’s unfinished business, they’ll show up at the office on weekends and holidays and work until the job is complete. These are the people who always have work on their mind, even if they’re enjoying personal time.

2. Deep Passion

Work ethic and passion go hand in hand. It takes work ethic to keep the business strong, and it takes passion to feel motivated enough to maintain a good worth ethic.

I believe passion is easily the most significant personality trait any successful entrepreneur has, and for obvious reasons. They’re successful because they choose to do what they love.

Did you ever feel so passionate about a school project that you ended up getting an A? That feeling of success is priceless, and it’s how entrepreneurs feel when they see great outcomes from the effort they put into their work.

3. Creativity

Companies that thrive are often built from the wild creativity of their creators. With aggressive competition these days, entrepreneurs are forced to come up with original ideas that differentiate their companies from others.

Creativity can mean thinking of unique business ideas. It can also come into play when finding a relationship between two unrelated things to solve a problem. Creative entrepreneurs consider the possibility that the traditional solution isn’t good enough.

4. Motivated Self-Starters

A self-starter doesn’t settle for a draining 9-to-5 job. A self-starter doesn’t give up at the first sign of struggle. A self-starter doesn’t hold things off until it’s too late.

A self-starter is someone who does what needs to be done without being asked or encouraged to do so. They take the initiative on their own projects and lead themselves. They recognize that when things get hard, it’s a challenge that helps them grow as an entrepreneur and make the business stronger.

Entrepreneurs have to be self-starters to help their businesses scale rapidly in today’s cutthroat business world.

5. Easygoing Attitude

Change of plans? Do you need to redo an entire project? A successful entrepreneur will shake off any inconveniencies and start from scratch without getting into a huge rut. In fact, many entrepreneurs will tell you that their businesses turned out much differently from what they had originally envisioned. They’ll also likely tell you that they wouldn’t want their business to have turned out any other way.

Being easygoing is all about going with the flow, taking new opportunities as they come, not getting stuck in a certain mindset and being receptive to changes and even criticism. Successful entrepreneurs can take a bad situation and spin it around to their advantage.

6. Eager to Learn

No one knows everything. A new business doesn’t often have staff in every department due to lack of funding. It takes time and resources to build a team. That means entrepreneurs need to learn everything from accounting to marketing from the get-go.

This kind of experience is what makes accomplished entrepreneurs so well rounded. They’ve seen it, been through it and learned it all before.

Whether you hope to become an entrepreneur, are fairly new in the game or are now a seasoned entrepreneur, you can become successful. Although adopting these personality traits will help you in the long run, it’s likely you already possess them if you’re following the entrepreneurial path.

Grow » Thrive

Entrepreneurs Reveal the 6 Personality Traits That Make Them Successful

Everyone knows it takes a special person to make a successful entrepreneur. But special in what ways?

By: Joyce Walsack, CO— Contributor

A big idea, a lot of hard work, a little luck, some good timing. It could all add up to a successful business. But what traits make up the entrepreneur at the heart of it? It depends on who you ask. Here are six traits that entrepreneurs and experts believe are the key strengths of a great entrepreneur.

[Read more: 5 Small Business Owners Offer Their Best Advice for Starting a Business]

Persuasiveness

No less an authority than Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban puts salesmanship at the top of his must-have list of traits for successful entrepreneurs. The ability to convince others is an obvious requirement when you consider the diverse groups an entrepreneur will need to sell on the value of a big idea.

Selling family should come first, according to Inc. Next will come investors, potential partners, suppliers, employees and customers. Some of this selling will be ongoing for the life of your business and Cuban warns against believing otherwise.

Flexibility

Successful entrepreneurs demonstrate flexibility in any number of ways. A willingness to collaborate, for example, shows an ability to accept the ideas of other team members. Pivoting is another way to exhibit flexibility. Forbes describes no less than nine types of pivots, and lists them all as key to entrepreneurial success.

Cheesemaker and animal sanctuary owner Sheila Flanagan can attest to the need for flexibility. The award-winning artisan cheeses she crafts at Nettle Meadow Farm in Thurman, New York, have been featured in Esquire, New York Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. The actual making of cheese, however, is just one aspect of Flanagan’s business. There are animals to care for, buildings to maintain, customers to court and orders to fulfill. Whether it’s something as big as a pandemic or as small as an out-of-commission label printer, Flanagan thrives on dealing with the unexpected and considers flexibility critical to her company’s long-term survival. “As your company grows,” Flanagan says, “you are guaranteed to need to dig deep into your flexibility store.”

[Read more: Switching from Live to Virtual Events? Here’s How to Make the Pivot]

If you’re not passionate about your idea, how can you envision it solving a problem, or sell it to an investor?

Creativity

By any other name—curiosity, ingenuity, imagination or vision—creativity is key to the success of an entrepreneur. Just ask Simon Sinek, who believes that, ultimately, entrepreneurs are problem solvers.

Stanford University’s Tina Seelig agrees and advocates teaching business students creative problem-solving. Imagination, she posits, is the ability to envision things that don’t exist while creativity is about the ability to apply that imagination to address a challenge. Entrepreneurship, Seelig says, is about applying innovation at a scale that inspires the imaginations of others—problem-solving writ large.

Digital media consultant John Boitnott, a member of Entrepreneur’s Leadership Network, has creativity at the very top of his entrepreneurial attributes list. He believes the more you use your creativity—specifically to make useful connections—the more creative and productive you will become.

Self-motivation

Both Monster and Indeed top their lists of entrepreneurial personality traits with self-motivation, and it’s hard to argue with that placement. The ability to jump into the fray and remain there day after day without prodding from another person is what we think of when we picture an entrepreneurial spirit.

While Scott Galloway, author, professor and entrepreneur behind L2 Inc. and Red Envelope, agrees self-motivation is requirement one, he phrases it a little differently. “Can you sign the front and not the back of checks?” Galloway asks. Reminding would-be entrepreneurs that not only will they need their own motor, at least in the short-term, it will have to be something besides money that keeps it running.

Tenacity

Whether you call it persistence, determination or doggedness, successful entrepreneurs push forward in spite of obstacles and setbacks. To paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, nothing is worth doing unless it comes with difficulties.

Kathy Miller would certainly agree. She launched her gift business, Love is on Lake George, nearly ten years ago—a lifetime in the small business arena. Miller ships the Adirondack-themed gifts she designs to customers all across the country and attributes her long-term success to hard work and tenacity. “We strive never to lose sight of our goals, both short- and long-term,” Miller says, despite the obstacles that come up daily.

Passion

What necessity is to the inventor, passion must be to the entrepreneur, and it should be on every list of entrepreneurial attributes. If you’re not passionate about your idea, how can you envision it solving a problem, or sell it to an investor? How can you pivot on a dime without losing your focus? Without passion, how could you motivate yourself over the long haul?

According to a psychological study of entrepreneurship within organizations, passion isn’t simply another personality trait. It’s the fuel that powers all of the others. The same is true for individuals. Passion fuels the creativity, the tenacity, the salesmanship. Show me a successful entrepreneur and I’ll show you a person with a passion for business.

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Published December 08, 2020

Which of the following is the personality trait or characteristic common among the entrepreneurs?

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