Kuldip Maity

People are known to use the phrase “born leaders” as a compliment. One might wonder if leadership is, in fact, an inherent quality that people are born with and if it is a quality that is engineered into their genetic makeup. But this could lead to the conclusion that people who are not born with this innate quality of leadership cannot be successful leaders.

Before we try to answer this question, we need to recognize what entrepreneurial leadership truly is. In my opinion, leadership is not a singular trait. Instead, it is a culmination of different traits and skills. Leaders are unique and do not fit into a template. However, some recurring commonalities can be found among leaders, such as the ability to inspire followers.

The question that remains is whether leaders are forged at birth or molded through experience.

Arguably, the most common terms used in connection with entrepreneurs are vision and passion. It is undeniable that some individuals, from a very young age itself, display immense passion and the vision to build something, and are very clear about it. An effective mentor, an inspirational idol, or even difficult circumstances, can shape true changemakers out of introverted souls, leaving the bystanders in awe.

It would be inaccurate to say that entrepreneurial leaders can simply use their inherited charm to sway past the numerous difficulties that they could face while running an enterprise. Albeit it surely helps to have such qualities as a part of one’s personality, there are several other factors such as tenacity, business sense, and hard work. When innate talent does not grab opportunities at the right moment, that talent remains in its potential state without ever materializing.

Furthermore, one cannot ignore the fact that practically, a successful venture is backed by education. This education is not always formal or institutionalized. Education can be built over time through taking on challenges, experience, and invested learning through doing. The moment a leader stops growing and adapting herself or himself according to changing market scenarios, they risk becoming stagnant and diluting into irrelevance.

Some qualities have to be adopted and ingrained into one’s personality, such as empathy for the workforce, which leads to strong interpersonal relationships that inspire loyalty. Further, it is only when an entrepreneur has sincerity and integrity that she can inspire trust among their clients.

At the same time, it cannot be denied that many of these qualities come easier to some people than others. However, through my experience, I have observed that leadership is more about learning and conditioning than about the talent that one is born with. Generational businesses have proved that genes do not guarantee good entrepreneurs. Even the successful generational business tycoons that we see today are testament to the success of independent perseverance.

While nature cannot be entirely ignored when it comes to entrepreneurial leadership, ultimately, nurture plays a decisive role.

Livelihood training remains an elusive concept in the areas where it should be most prevalent. Even in places where it is not an entirely foreign concept, livelihood training is often given a very restrictive meaning.

On the other hand, livelihood is a well-known concept. It is the means of earning to sustain oneself. This concept gave rise to the concept of sustainable livelihoods. Livelihoods transform into sustainable livelihoods only when there is stability, i.e., when livelihoods do not collapse in the face of market changes or unexpected events such as natural disasters, pandemics, and the like. Livelihood training trains groups of people who have similar resources, such as locations, incomes, livestock, land, tools, education, social networks, and skills. The essence of true livelihood training is empowering people to put such resources to the best use to make their livelihoods sustainable.

However, gone are the days when livelihood training was restricted to only earning limited income for sustenance. Today, livelihood training has a huge impact on the holistic lives of individuals with limited means. It is directly correlated to instilling an entrepreneurial spirit that drives people to put their skills to practical applications and build enterprises of their own.

Moreover, a key benefit of livelihood training is psychological. Once individuals feel empowered with the strength of the resources around them and truly recognize them as assets, their self-confidence and self-esteem get a boost. With this dignity, integrity, and confidence, individuals break out of inferiority complexes and are equipped to take calculated risks toward success.

Livelihood training teaches passionate micro and small entrepreneurs to sustain their entrepreneurial activities on the ethos of their skills. It acts like a comprehensive primer on the different facets of entrepreneurship such as business vision, communication, technology, networking, finances, and inventory control. With these skills in the basket, and more importantly, with the zeal of applying these skills independently, individuals can transform into entrepreneurs.

Time and again, I have stressed the importance of having a vision. A restrictive outlook does not help create grand successful business ventures. Empowered, strategized and ambitious foresight chalks the path to creating businesses that think beyond short-term income.

Livelihood training, whether or not labeled as such, has led to many such enterprises coming up and becoming successful. Examples of livelihood-inspired businesses have been spotlighted in my previous blogs as well. For instance, Khodija Bibi turned the recyclable scrap in her locality into an enterprise, or Jaba recognized the potential of her family garden of marigolds and became a flower-selling entrepreneur. Similarly, VFS Capital women have also availed themselves of loans for tools such as sewing machines, with which they have built successful micro businesses.

The main message that I wish to convey with these examples is that entrepreneurship is no longer a path that is restricted to inherited skills, or persons with ready-to-use capital at their disposal. People can be inspired by the resources around them, and once they have the skill to put them to their best use, they can look at flexible borrowing options such as microfinance to turn their ideas into sustainable and successful business ventures.

A collaborative relationship among SMEs would translate into multiple SMEs across different segments, strategically working in the pursuit of similar goals through their unique contribution and thereby empowering each other against the competition in the market.

During testing times in the market, such as the recent pandemic, SMEs take huge hits. During such times, the need for funds and uninterrupted functioning becomes a matter of survival. Since most SMEs may not qualify for bank loans with rigid documentation requirements, they opt for more flexible and cooperative options such as NBFCs, which take into account their human factors, especially those who already have experience in microfinance through the JLG model.

Owing to competition on a global scale and having corporate giants as their immediate competitors, SMEs fall short in several factors such as networks, manpower, reach, and other resources. This is where a collaborative environment among SMEs can level the playing field.

Entrepreneurs who are the faces behind these SMEs usually have ambitious visions for their enterprises. However, the lack of resources and infrastructure can dampen their spirit and disrupt their goals. The interesting part is that the ambitious vision is often shared by other SME owners who in turn are faced with their own set of challenges. Under such conditions, the idea of collaboration comes up as a natural solution.

When these SMEs, each bringing their own set of contributions to the table, collaborate symbiotically, their power in numbers and expertise can uplift them to give a tough competition for larger businesses. Other than the financing I shall discuss three broad spheres of productive collaboration that in my opinion have the potential to empower SMEs beyond expectations.

Firstly, SMEs can enter into collaborative arrangements that directly result in cutting costs. For instance, local SMEs can engage in strategies to share the cost of transportation by coming up with innovative ways of delivery and commuting that help all the parties involved and in turn, reduce their costs. Local businesses that are not direct competitors can share equipment, machinery, and even office spaces to thereby have access to more advanced solutions that would otherwise be out of their budget.

Secondly, they can have a mutual-benefit model to jointly enhance their sourcing and sales. Some SMEs need raw materials, some need semi-finished goods, while others need services, etc. By creating a strong network among enterprises, gaps in the market and fluctuating prices can be overcome. Intelligent arrangements can also lead to sharing clients and increasing business reach.

Last but not the least, collaboration can enable SMEs to achieve specialized services. I have earlier spoken about the adoption of technology to improve the productivity and efficiency of SMEs. Several SMEs have recognized the importance of cloud computing, but some still lack its affordability. Similarly, skills such as marketing, especially in the digital space, require seasoned experts. When SMEs work together, they can access these services and they will no longer be reserved only for corporates.

Collaboration, when applied with necessary caution such as ensuring transparency, pre-deciding arrangements, maintaining confidentiality, and following healthy trade practices, can be a boon to the SME industry.

It's time for entrepreneurs to take charge. Inferiority is a mindset. Collaboration is Empowerment.

The crowd of budding entrepreneurs is growing fast as it has started becoming a more acceptable choice of career in society. The first image that pops in one’s mind when they imagine an entrepreneur, is a young, charming person with expensive gadgets, superior technology, and a high bank balance. The reality is often far from this romanticized idea of what entrepreneurship truly is. Therefore, this acceptance comes at the cost of propagating a contorted view of doing one’s own business, one that conveniently ignores the challenges and numerous hurdles faced by an entrepreneur.

The truth is that not every business becomes an automatic success, especially when the people driving it are acting in auto-pilot mode.

For any successful business venture, irrespective of scale, an essential factor is its strategy. An SME’s leader must be aware that the service or product he is selling is going to face competition in the market. They need to rise above their limited perspective as a business owner and achieve the ability to view their enterprise through the lens of a consumer.

When an SME leader stands in the shoes of their consumer, they realize that the first thing that a consumer looks for is the personality of their enterprise. The personality of SMEs defines who they are, why they are in existence, and where they are aiming to go. The main two representatives that encompass the personality of an SME are Vision and Mission.

Often incorrectly used synonymously, the vision and mission statements are two distinct aspects of an enterprise. I shall attempt to elaborate with a quick primer on these two salient components of a successful SME.

The mission statement of an SME represents the cumulative of its goals and values in the present time. A mission statement describes precisely what the business does. It includes the short-term goals of an enterprise, along with the plans devised to ensure the fulfillment of those goals. The trick to identifying the perfect mission statement for an SME is to highlight its USPs to show the consumer why it should be chosen over all other alternatives.

On the other hand, a vision statement is a future-oriented, comprehensive glance into an SME. The concretized ethos of the business along with its purpose should be highlighted in its vision statement. The leader of the SME can take more liberties with the vision statement and include their realistic aspirations and future goals. The key is to design a vision that inspires confidence and trust in the consumer.

The process of building a vision and mission does not end after writing some abstract words. The entrepreneur must ingrain the spirit of their SME’s mission into the entire team and align all their activities to the vision of the SME.