4. Authentic
In Feb 2007, Stanford Business School Advisory Committee declared that self awareness was the most important attribute that a Leader/ Entrepreneur should develop. As you journey towards self awareness, many changes in your thinking occur.

(i) you become aware of your own talents and potential.
(ii) You become more aware of the talent of others and indeed the need to tap into this talent pool.
Both of the above move you towards a more sustainable model – the need to embrace the potential of your staff and create leaders at all levels. Only a secure confident leader can create a high trust culture.
(iii) You become aware of the need for real.
Being real in the current marketplace is a prerequisite for success as both internal and external customers know the difference between real and artificial attempts to meet their needs. Recent Gallup research showed that the most important person in an organisation to an employee is their direct line manager. If this relationship is real, employees feel real connection with the organisation. If the customer relationship is real, you can begin to convert customers into friends – customers leave friends rarely do.

5. Action

Regardless of market conditions, the new entrepreneurs continue to cross the bridge from inaction to action focusing on their dreams, attracting and creating a mastermind alliance to help them on the way.

They learn from failure, readapting, not buying into the insanity loop where you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

They appreciate the importance of perseverance and hard work.

Kevin Kelly is an Internationally Acclaimed Motivational Speaker and Best Selling Author.

As published in the Irish Entrepreneur.