Individual Reflective Report on Entrepreneurial and Leadership Skills

Individual
Reflective
Report
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship requires the usage of specific skills and leadership attributes to handle
entrepreneurial challenges and achieve long-term success. Creating and maintain success of an
enterprise is a complicated task which involves development of successful entrepreneurial skills
(Farooq, 2018). Personal entrepreneurial skills can be evaluated with the help of self-assessment
tools and exercises. The usage of these exercises help individuals understand the gaps and
strengths of the personality traits and abilities in relation to the traits and abilities of a successful
entrepreneur. This reflective report analyses personal entrepreneurial and leadership skills and
traits by presenting business examples of to showcase the effectiveness of traits and leadership
skills in achieving practical business success.
MAIN BODY
Reflection is defined as the process of observing and analysing personal behaviour,
cognition and mental processes during various activities to gain profound insight about own
personality. The application of reflection can support me in evaluating my entrepreneurial traits
and leadership qualities so that I am able to determine my key weaknesses and strengths in
context of entrepreneurial personality. I have utilized the GET test for determining the level of
different entrepreneurial abilities. This self-assessment exercise helps individuals identify and
their enterprising potential. This refers to the ability to take up and manage projects effectively
and achieve entrepreneurial success. The enterprising potential which is determined with the help
of this test includes various activities such as starting up own enterprise, managing daily
challenges or working as an entrepreneur. High motivation is required for succeeding as an
entrepreneur.
The primary skills which support high level of motivation in an individual are relentlessness,
high energy, orientation towards the future, task-oriented and being results oriented person
(Badawi and et. al., 2019). I am relentless in my pursuit towards achieving results and take
detailed effort to deliver best results in a timely manner. The advantage of these traits is that they
will help me maintain my motivation even in time of crisis and achieve entrepreneurial goals
with dedication. The disadvantage of high level of these traits is that it can also reduce my ability
to take criticism effectively to make improvement and work towards the future.
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A business example which showcases the importance of relentlessness, task oriented
focus towards the future and results is the success of British appliance manufacturing company
Dyson. The company was founded in the year 1991 and the first product of Dyson the cyclonic
vacuum cleaner was a huge success. The story behind success of Dyson showcases the presence
of relentlessness and task oriented drive to achieve best possible results. Dyson started working
on the vacuum cleaner after receiving dissatisfaction from the current products in the category. It
took 5,126 prototypes to finally create the end product which is one of the biggest hits of Dyson
and fuelled the success of the company (How James Dyson's Thousands of Failures Can Help
You Tell a Captivating Founder Origin Story, 2022).
This was achieved while facing rejection from current employer and getting kicked out of
the job for proposing to build a better vacuum cleaner. Dyson was able to follow the path of
success by focusing in the future instead of present failure and having a strong drive to gain only
the highest quality results without any compromise. This showcases that successful enterprise are
built on relentless believe in idea and focusing on future success rather than dwelling on failures.
In addition to this another requirement for becoming a successful entrepreneur and a leader
is to have need for autonomy. This involves the ability to become an independent leader,
effective self-management and having control over own behaviour and behaviour of others in a
team setting. The level of my need for autonomy is medium and there is scope of improvement
in this entrepreneurial trait. The need for autonomy and ability to work effectively in
autonomous environments create successful leaders who are able to recover their enterprise or
project from crises and survive challenging time without external guidance.
The advantage of having better autonomy is that I will be able to handle challenging
activities on my own and guide others during tough times to survive in the corporate world for a
long-time period. The disadvantage of having high autonomy is that it can make collaborations
with other businesses as an entrepreneur difficult which are also needed for long-term survival
and global expansion. I need to improve my level of autonomy to become a more effective leader
and survive cut-throat competition is an entrepreneur without unlearning the importance of
collaboration with others to achieve complicated objectives.
Creativity and having deep imagination are also needed to become a successful
entrepreneur and effective leader (Tolfo and et. al., 2018). Creativity supports leaders because
they are able to find unique solutions to challenges and come up with out of the box ways of
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