Nature or nurture? Decoding the DNA of the entrepreneur

Ernst & Young

Entrepreneurial leaders enjoy a reputation as freewheeling mavericks who operate in a world far removed from corporate life. Yet the overlap between entrepreneurial leaders and traditional managers is much larger than is often assumed. Creative, innovative individuals may possess copious ideas, but it takes leadership and business discipline to turn them into successful ventures.

With entrepreneurship seen as a major source of economic growth and job creation, the question remains: what makes up an entrepreneurial mindset? This question is echoed in major corporate boardrooms, with many chief executives keen to encourage internal entrepreneurial thinking and innovation as a way to reinvent their businesses and stay ahead of the competition.

This report aims to provide some insights into the minds of today’s most successful entrepreneurial leaders and discern what makes them successful. We conclude with a model that represents both the intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of their mindset and abilities.

The report features perspectives from a survey of 685 entrepreneurial business leaders from around the world and is informed by a series of in-depth interviews with Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award winners.

Download the Executive Summary: Nature or nurture? Decoding the DNA of the entrepreneur "Executive Summary"

Download the Report: Nature or nurture? Decoding the DNA of the entrepreneur

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2 Comments

RE: EOY Nature or Nurture Report

Hugo said...

I believe that considering the increasing complexity of our society and the free flow of information, more and more formulas/rules/pre-concepts will not work. More and more entrepreneurship will depend of sensibility more than knowledge, in the same way that Einstein said that imagination is more important than intelligence. Entrepreneurship will be more and more an Art.

RE: EOY Nature or Nurture Report

Jared fortney said...

i feel that it is all in a persons mindset, i dont think your "born" to be an entrepreneur, i believe that if you think and know you can support yourself AND a buisness with your idea of your product/service, you should start, and i think it takes strong people to be an entrepreneur, and people are not born strong, they are trained stron, thus you need to be trained strong, thus, it is nurture, not nature