Why businesses have to maintain an entrepreneurial core
How long lasting companies maintain their focus and stay ahead of the curve
Read Time: 4.20 Minutes
I often can differentiate great leaders and mediocre ones by an easy observation.
The great ones are physically engaged in ongoing projects, bringing in new ideas and coaching the people around them.
Every f*cking day.
The mediocre ones are just managers. "Manage" everything that happens around the company and what others bring to them. They just try to squeeze out from what's already there.
So you have two forms of leaders.
The entrepreneurial thinking leaders. Usually the founders.
With some exceptions, great ceo's you can hire out there, with a strong bias to entrepreneurial ideas. But they are rare.
And there are the managers which incentivised by a bonus, targeting to increase some KPIs around growing 10% or cutting costs.
I think businesses are better off with the first ones than the ladder ones.
Most of the time companies are better, led by their founders and owners. Because these tend to have better innovative solutions and bias to action instead of decision fatigue.
Instead businesses which got sold and then led by a hired manager, often lose their edge.
They stop being innovative, stop playing long term games and even if they look better on the balance sheet for a while, they get behind.
I know, there are phases in a company's life which can be better with a manager. But most of the time in business history they are better off with their founders or entrepreneurial executives.
Therefore I think great businesses never lose their entrepreneurial core. They embrace the right amount of risk and innovation driven by the core value to always get better.
As a company in general, for their customers and for the coworkers.
A company should have the right amount of generalists which work on the business and specialists which are scaling the operations through growth phases.
So having a strong entrepreneurial core is key to stay ahead of the curve. This core can be led by a manager, but they have to be supported at least by a high amount of freedom.
In my opinion companies with an embedded entrepreneurial core are performing on the long run in many cases better than the ordinary managed average.
These projects tend to be more interesting and innovative. Which brings in more skilled workers.
They also may tend to not over-hire in the first place, which leads to more room for employer development and promotions.
These businesses may also find better solutions even in down terms, to embrace growth through rough times.
Especially if you look at long lasting companies with more than some decades of history you will find an entrepreneurial core. Staying ahead of the markets needs adapting changes quickly.
Founders often come up with vital pivots through times like this. When managers answer usually only with cutting costs and personnel.
To conclude in easy terms:
While entrepreneurial leaders embrace the right amount of risk, managers instead try to avoid risk.
Through good times, no problem. Through bad ones a strong roadblock to get over.
So embrace your entrepreneurial core and never stop.
-End-
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