A leader functions to set policies and goals, organize a team or company and define standard operating procedures that follow company objectives and policies to attain continual improvement in the business venture. Being a leader is not simple, it involves the knowledge and understanding of the legal and social aspects of the subject, and the practical wisdom in every aspect of life. So, learning and developing leadership qualities is an important attribute that an entrepreneur must possess to be successful in their business venture.

Leadership as a practical skill encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations to attain a set goal. Entrepreneurs are not managers, they are leaders. They visualize ideas and conceive the ideas, through understanding into information that with wisdom, they can convert into a real business venture.

The following are the important traits that are reliably associated with leaders and these are; assertiveness, authenticity, birth order, character strengths, dominance, emotional intelligence, gender identity, intelligence, narcissism, self-efficacy for leadership, self-monitoring and social motivation. A critical correlation of these quality traits shows that leaders emerge and that people born with specific characteristics become leaders, and those without these characteristics do not become leaders. However, there is no known research showing that there is a “leadership gene”, instead people inherit certain traits that might influence their decision to seek leadership. For budding entrepreneurs to develop these skills, they must know, understand and imbibe the core personality characteristics of a leader in a business venture. 

The key functions of leaders drive their motivation to cause others to follow them in the course of achieving set goals. The key functions of business leaders are setting policies and goals, organization of work systems and procedures, starting actions, coordinating approved steps in a procedure, directing and motivating a team, and management of work process review and corrective actions. To achieve the set goal with the continual improvement of the system, a leadership style of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people are very crucial. It results from the philosophy, personality, and experience of the leader.

Years of experience have shown me that the willingness of team members to take part in a group can show a person’s interest and willingness to take responsibility for how the group performs. Similarly, those who say little during a group meeting are less likely to emerge as a leader than those who speak up. There is however some debate among experts over whether the quality of participation in a group matters more than the quantity. Different situations call for different leadership styles. My 38 years in entrepreneurship have shown that in an emergency when there is little time to converge on an agreement and where a designated authority has significantly more experience or expertise than the rest of the team, an autocratic leadership style may be most effective.  However, in a highly motivated and aligned team with a homogeneous level of expertise, a more democratic or laissez-faire style may be more effective. The style adopted should be the one that most effectively achieves the objectives of the group while balancing the interests of its members. 

An entrepreneurial field in which leadership style has gained strong attention is that of science and technical data collection for infrastructural risk management. When such data is collected in the integrated form, the survey and metocean team, the environmental studies team, the geophysical survey team, the geotechnical investigation team and the testing team work together under one contract to collect a holistic set of data for interpretative design report for risk, liability and complexity management in infrastructure design. In situations like this expressing an integrated view of leadership, includes how a leader’s physical presence in the field determines how others perceive that leader. 

The factors of physical presence are integrated science knowledge, physical observation capacity, confidence, and resilience in dealing with fieldwork challenges. The leader’s intellectual capacity helps to conceptualize solutions and gain knowledge to do the job. A leader’s conceptual abilities apply agility, judgment, innovation and creativity, interpersonal tact, and local and domain knowledge. Domain knowledge for leaders encompasses tactical and technical knowledge and cultural and geopolitical awareness. Without these factors, integrated data collection and interpretation studies for risk management are impossible to achieve as a business venture.