Entrepreneurs tend to be self-driven leaders with enough vision and charisma to motivate themselves as well as their employees toward success. These special types of leaders often exhibit characteristics congruent with those of the charismatic, visionary or transactional leadership styles. Some of these same characteristics as well as leadership styles can be seen in the story of Starbucks Chairman, Howard Schultz. This paper will associate entrepreneurs with certain leadership styles and characteristics in addition to describing how some of the same aspects are present in Howard Schultz's leadership approach.
Entrepreneurs should be classified as charismatic, visionary or transformational leaders. These three leadership styles are very similar and central to the essence of the entrepreneur. Here we sill briefly describe these leadership styles;The charismatic leadership style utilizes a leader's personality and vision for an organization to motivate workers (Childs, 2003). Charismatic leaders possess a number of commendable qualities such as confidence, assertiveness and strong personal commitment to an idealized goal (Leadership Issues for the 21st Century, 2006).
Entrepreneur of the Century
Starbucks Bean Life display in Miami at the Latin ...
Starbucks Chairman Howard Shultz talks to the medi...The visionary leadership style allows a leader to create and communicate a realistic, achievable and attractive vision containing values and actions that improve upon the present position. The key aspect of the visionary leadership style is to present an inspirational vision founded on values (Leadership Issues for the 21st Century, 2006).
The transformational leadership style motivates employees to work for the good of the organization. It promotes the need for personal growth and the affirmation of individual performance. Transformational leaders utilize charisma and vision as the driving forces of their motivation (Leadership, 2006).
Regardless of which of these leadership styles or combination of is used by an entrepreneur, they must always establish credibility and trust with those surrounding them to validate their leadership. Now we will discuss why these leadership styles...