One of my partners asked me to share some qualities of a successful businessperson. I reduced it to one quality, actually: self-awareness. I then recommended developing what I call L-Skills: Listening, Losing, Leveraging, Learning and Leading.
Self-awareness is critical consciousness of who you are, what you are capable of and what you are doing; critical because you must interrogate it and conscious because you must manage the focus on your vision and state of being. It is important to learn to detect what is on you and what is on the world, take responsibility and action for what is within your power and control, and be at peace with the rest.
So, how can you improve self-awareness? Through personal development. Research shows, particularly for people in developing countries, that personal development is a critical success factor for entrepreneurship, even more so than business training. You can always outsource business functions, but the core of what you want to accomplish, which is the basis of being a successful entrepreneur, is becoming better at being the best you; because, in the initial stage, you are your business is an extension of your brand.
Once you become self-aware, you attain a good handle on what you can do effectively, what is worthwhile and what you need to collaborate with others to achieve. This is critical in entrepreneurship.
Let us talk about these ‘L’ Skills that will help build self-awareness.
What do you think and self-awareness and the ‘L’ skills? Please share who you think are some of the qualities of good businesspersons.
Blessings!