The drive and mental capacity needed to succeed in business, including developing successful businesspeople skills, can’t be understated. The ability of a business executive to cultivate their mental, emotional, and even physical fortitude directly impacts their venture’s success.
Think about it this way: even entrepreneurs who are handed the reins of a hugely successful business empire might throw it all away with bad decisions. The same holds for start-ups with millions from angel investors and the most innovative projects on Shark Tank.
Just because a business is based on a great idea and has the right funding, it doesn’t always equate to success. Day in and day out, entrepreneurs must wield that idea and their funding in the right ways. In other words, the skills that the most successful businesspeople embody aren’t quite as tangible as we like to think.
This is good news, as it means that anyone can develop their intelligence and mental agility to improve their business acumen. But what, exactly, are these skills? Let’s take a closer look at the types of skills that leading entrepreneurs embody.
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment is all about gauging the unknown and, figurately speaking, hedging bets. Let’s use an example of poker to explore how risk assessment might pan out. In games like Texas Hold’em, players must develop skills like risk assessment to improve their play.
For poker players, risk assessment means learning to leverage their position at the table, avoiding placing high bets at the start of a game, and acting without a plan. Usually, throughout many games, they’ll learn how to approach each game according to how others are playing, their position, and a variety of other factors all of which are designed to minimize risk.
In the context of business, entrepreneurs must similarly assess their own projects. They’ll also be dealing with other players (businesses), unique positions in the market, and more. But only the best know how to juggle these various demands to guarantee success.
Long-term Planning
Incremental and daily actions are the backbone of many successful businesses but long-term planning is often in place, working behind the scenes to keep a company on track. Businesspeople who refine their long-term planning skills can weather economic storms, expand dynamically into new markets, and more.
But it’s a deceptively hard skill to perfect. Let’s use another game as an example: chess. Chess is a game of forward-thinking. When professional players sit down for a game, each move creates a cascade of future possibilities. Players aren’t only moving a rook, but are also forecasting potential new tactics based on how their opponent reacts.
The world’s leading entrepreneurs also need to be able to think this far ahead. While business isn’t nearly as straightforward as chess and certainly comes with no set of rules it pays to have a solid plan in place, along with more than a few backup plans and spare ideas.
People Skills
Lastly, successful entrepreneurs usually have a strong sense of working with others. This isn’t universally the case after all, big-wigs like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk aren’t necessarily known for their charm. However, businesspeople should be capable of motivating their teams and displaying some sense of accountability.
These types of skills, including leadership and communication, are becoming increasingly important for employees. They aren’t only interested in joining a leading company, but also in feeling that they’re contributing to a meaningful project by working with a solid team. A positive experience at the office and with colleagues also leads to stronger performance.
That’s because bosses with people skills can motivate others. Think of it like being a coach on a team. Only the coach who knows where to put players and how to get the most out of them will have a winning team. In other words, no leader succeeds alone in their efforts, which means teamwork is the backbone of ongoing business success.